Bomber Command: Churchill's Greatest Triumph - Couverture rigide

MacKenzie, Roddy

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 1399017721 ISBN 13 : 9781399017725

Editeur : Air World, 2023

Synopsis

While researching what his father, Roland MacKenzie DFC, did as a Lancaster bomber pilot in the Second World War, retired Vancouver lawyer Roddy MacKenzie became increasingly aware of vagueness and some criticism regarding Bomber Command’s accomplishments. The emphasis was usually on the bravery of the ‘Bomber Boys’, the gallantry of specific sorties, such as the Dambusters, or post-war bombing controversies. Then Roddy discovered that Hitler’s Minister of Armaments and War Production, Albert Speer once stated that no Bomber Command book comes close to capturing the depth of what this force accomplished. A lightbulb went on. Roddy realized the Allies never really knew what Bomber Command accomplished. How could they? Allied intelligence inside Nazi Germany was poor, and there was a regrettable tendency to believe Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels’ lies, especially concerning Dresden. And then it struck Roddy – while the Allies never really knew what Bomber Command accomplished, the Germans certainly did. As a senior lawyer accustomed to wading through mountains of documents for the precious nuggets that win litigation, Roddy tackled massive amounts of German information. He dug deep into German archival material to uncover facts rarely presented to either German or English language readers. In so doing, he uncovered much about the devastating effectiveness of Bomber Command. The result is this book. It is a powerful portrait of Bomber Command’s accomplishments, which until now have not been properly understood by the Allies. This is not a textbook. Rather, it is accurate facts coupled with compelling stories about the people who turned Bomber Command into the lethal war-winning weapon it became. First among these was Sir Winston Churchill – Bomber Command was Churchill’s greatest triumph. This book is also about the Germans who were defeated in their defence of the Reich by the Allies’ Strategic Bombing Offensive. That was a catastrophic defeat for the evilest of regimes, the Third Reich. Yet there is more. Roddy, being Canadian, naturally also highlights Canada’s extraordinary contribution to Bomber Command. Did you know, for example, that one out of every four Canadians in uniform killed in the Second World War died in Bomber Command? Finally, this book clarifies who Bomber Command’s leader ‘Bomber’ Harris really was; and tells us what our Bomber Boys, risking everything against overwhelming odds in the dark night-fighter and flak-filled skies of the Nazi’s Fortress Europe, did to bring the Second World War to its crushing conclusion.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Born and raised in Calgary, Roddy MacKenzie is a retired municipal law barrister and solicitor whose law firm he created acted for over fifty municipalities. Roddy was Municipal Law National Chair of the Canadian Bar Association and an Adjunct Professor of Municipal Law at the University of British Columbia. Roddy’s analytical skills to research and articulate his findings in courtrooms, city halls and elsewhere served him well in researching and writing this book. Roddy is a Life Member of the Bomber Command Museum of Canada, and belongs to the RAF Club in London, BC’s Air Force Officers Association, and New Zealand’s and Australia's Bomber Command Associations. He has visited over seventy countries and has a lifelong interest in the Second World War and Churchill. Roddy lives in West Vancouver with his wife Ka Hyun MacKenzie Shin and has four children – Mary Anne (Vancouver), Guy Roland and Ruaridh (London, UK) and Kai MacKenzie (Toronto).

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Air World
• Date d'édition: 2023
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1399017721
• ISBN 13: 9781399017725
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 288
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible