Tail Gunner

Any student of history will probably be aware of the ongoing controversy and debate surrounding the Royal Air Force's strategic bombing campaign during the Second World War. Primarily that debate focuses on the attack by the RAF and US 8th AAF's raids on Dresden in the spring of 1945 - and despite that raid being the factor that polarises, it is only one small part of the story.

Much of the forgotten story is that of the airmen themselves, the volunteers who flew and fought in Bomber Command, many of them very young, in their late teens and early twenties, and there are very few sources that recount their stories.

One such account is the posthumously published "Tail Gunner" by Squadron Leader R. C. "Rivs" Rivaz, DFC. The very fact that it was published subsequent to the author's death tells the reader that this book is important to anyone who has an interest in the strategic bombing campaign of WWII.

This is a very human story, told by somebody who was at the heart of early bombing operations as the RAF formed its strategy that would ultimately prove so controversial. However perhaps because it was written before the debate existed, it is refreshingly candid, and does not hold back. It is often brutal, without being bloody, and Rivs (or "Revs" as Leonard Cheshire, VC his friend who wrote the foreword called him) is uncompromising in his tale. He takes no glory in it, and in many ways is painfully matter of fact about the situation. There is a job to be done, and he, and his comrades in Bomber Command are those tasked and equipped to do the job. There is no pleasure, but there is frequently a great deal of pain as he matter-of-factly with losing friends and comrades in what, with hindsight, we now know to be one of the most dangerous occupations in WWII. Perhaps, surprisingly given the circumstances, there's almost no jingoism, but rather a fatalistic acceptance of the job in hand.

Rivaz was considered old by Bomber Command, hence he became a tail gunner - flying, navigating and bomb aiming were considered at that time to be the jobs of young men, and so he became a tail gunner. That job in itself, in the RAF's earliest "heavies", four-engined Stirlings, Whitleys and Halifax' was the single most hazardous task faced by Bomber Command crews, and the we now know that the defensive armaments of these aircraft were pitifully inadequate. Four .303 calibre guns were little match for the Luftwaffe's flak and night-fighter cannons. The fact that a lowly tail gunner should become a Squadron Leader, although not explained in the book, speaks volumes for the man's competence.

Rivaz is modest, his own achievements are down-played, but he is highly descriptive of the action - even the mundane during operations, it is easy to get a sense of the life and activities of a bomber's crew, and he does in many ways epitomise the soldier's aphorism that war is ninety-nine percent boredom and one percent pure terror. He captures the action excellently and in some ways beautifully, and because this is an historical account, there is no need to be overly dramatic of the inherent violence that he experienced. That said, he does not shy away from the dreadful reality of warfare and the human cost, and the reader must be ready to steel themselves, because when he tells tales of loss this is not some fictitious protagonist, these are his friends - real people, sons, brothers and fathers.

This isn't a long book. It is a large type face and yet still doesn't run to 130 pages. However, it is the human face of warfare and the very repetitive nature of air warfare might cause a longer version to become "more of the same" - a rinse and repeat of the first part. In many ways, it is the perfect length - it describes an ordeal that we no longer comprehend. Ironically, Rivaz survived the war, but tragically was killed in an air crash in the autumn of 1945.

As an history graduate with a speciality in the air war, I have always cherished this book. It is an excellent primary source written at the time the operations took place, and is an excellent complement to the dry factual accounts and analyses of the modern histories. But even for the casual reader this is an interesting, moving and exciting book that deserves its place on any worthwhile book shelf. It will inform the adult reader and the mature child too and hopefully develop an interest in an important, but frequently overlooked aspect of British history.