Bomber Pilot: A Canadian Youth's War

Sidney Allinson is Canadian news correspondent for Britain’s The Army
Quarterly and Defence. He is the author of The Bantams: The Untold Story
of World War I, Jeremy Kane, and Kruger’s Gold: A Novel of the
Anglo-Boer War.

This is a straightforward account of one young man’s experiences as a
bomber pilot during the Second World War. The author and his comrades
were little more than boys when they joined up, fresh from farm, town,
or university. Jones was just a week past his 18th birthday when he
enrolled in the Royal Canadian Air Force at Saskatoon in 1942. He and
other civilian recruits adapted remarkably well to the sudden plunge
into service life.

Jones writes with apparent total recall about the routines in various
training establishments, and about amusing incidents he encountered
along the way. His anecdotes about eccentric instructors and strict
disciplinarians seem a world away from the hang-loose daily life of
today. A selection of wartime snapshots adds to our impression of what
these intrepid young airmen looked like. Aviation buffs will be
interested in the references to training aircraft such as the Cessna
Crane, Fairey Battle, North American Harvard, Avro Anson, and the
easy-to-fly Tiger Moth (dubbed the “Maytag Messerschmitt”).

The author eventually qualified as pilot of the Avro Lancaster heavy
bomber. Modestly, and a little disappointingly, he takes only three
chapters to recount his experiences in hazardous combat, which earned
him the award of a Distinguished Flying Cross. However, he does provide
some interesting descriptions of various technical and electronic
methods and aircrew duties during bombing routines. Having beaten the
huge odds against surviving 30 bombing operations, Jones returned home
to Canada, where he was honorably discharged just before his 21st
birthday. Aside from its biographical interest, his book can be
considered a useful reference, providing a wealth of information about
training, equipment, and flying operations during the air war over
German-occupied Europe.