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On 12 December 1944, with the war entering its final stages, Bomber
Command launched its last Main Force raid on the Krupps Steel works
at Essen. The attack was devastatingly successful, and completed
for the loss of only a handful of aircraft. Three of the airmen
lost in the raid are still listed as `missing', believed killed in
action. Extensive investigative research by aviation historians
Sean Feast and Marc Hall has discovered the truth about what
happened to these missing men, and how they are linked to the
murder of three unidentified RAF airmen, on a bridge, within
twenty-four hours of believing they were safe. They have also
discovered the truth about a fourth airman, a Canadian, shot down
on the same raid who died in mysterious circumstances and whose
near-naked body was discovered after the war, hastily buried in an
unmarked grave. In the centenary year of the RAF, the authors
reveal a darker side to the history of the `Third Service'.
Complementing historical research with the evidence of present-day
specialists, they have pieced together the harrowing story of four
murders, the identities of the victims and their killers, and the
tantalising possibility that at least one of the `missing' men may
at last have been found.
In the Summer of 1944 Nazi Germany launched its terrifying
Vergeltungswaffen (reprisal weapon) attack against the population
of south-east England. Under direct attack the Allies responded.
The Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower was quite
clear that the V-weapon counter measures were of paramount
importance over everything except the urgent requirements of the
D-Day and Normandy land battle, 'this priority to obtain until we
can be certain that we have definitely gotten the upper hand of
this particular business.' He would use all the resources at his
disposal including the Royal Air Force's heavy bomber force. The
task for RAF Bomber Command was simple. If the bomber crews could
reduce the number of V1s launched, the fighter aircraft and gun
defences had a better chance to intercept and shoot down the flying
bombs. But these pilotless aircraft were not the only menace, the
V2 rocket offensive would soon be launched, and the Allies closely
monitored the construction of what they came to learn was the V3
'supergun' site. When the war came to a close Bomber Command could
justifiably claim success against the V-Weapons. There was a cost
though - a cost in aircrew lives. V-Weapons Bomber Command Failed
to Return tells the story of some of those airmen who were prepared
to risk their lives countering the German V-Weapon offensive in
direct defence of the civilian population. They had responded to
what British Prime Minister Winston Churchill described as the
attempt to 'blast the viper in his nest'. Their story deserves to
be told. 'We Will Remember Them'.
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