Fire by Night : The Dramatic Story of One Pathfinder Crew and Black Thursday, 16-17 December 1943

by Gray, Jennie

• ISBN13: 9781902304632
• ISBN10: 1902304632
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-04-01
• Publisher: Grub Street
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Summary

On Thursday, December 16, 1943, and continuing through the night into Friday, 450 English bombers returning home from a raid on Berlin found their airfields shut in by heavy fog. Landing procedures were grossly inadequate and 40 Bomber Command aircraft crashed as a direct result of bad weather.

One Pathfinder and its crew crashed when they ran out of fuel with only two surviving, a tail-gunner and the author's father. Jennie Gray writes with an authority and an insider's knowledge of that fateful day.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	viii
The Shadow of the Past	1	(4)
Winter, 1961	1	(1)
Spring, 1997	2	(3)
With Bomber Command	5	(44)
Joe's Early War Years	5	(10)
The Crew	15	(8)
Wigsley	23	(11)
RAF Station Bourn	34	(5)
The Bomber Boys	39	(10)
16th/17th December 1943	49	(41)
Preparation	49	(6)
Attack	55	(5)
The Return to Bourn	60	(9)
Graveley	69	(4)
Y-York	73	(4)
The Loss of K-King	77	(13)
Aftermath	90	(47)
Black Thursday -- The Reckoning	90	(7)
Aftermath	97	(14)
RAF Hospital Ely	111	(11)
The Death of Leslie Laver	122	(15)
The Sole Survivor	137	(18)
Convalescence	137	(8)
Discharged from the RAF	145	(10)
The Day Of All Days	155	(2)
Appendix The Evidence Concerning K-King	157	(16)
Bibliography	173	(3)
Index	176