I Fought on a Bomber

This book collects the memoirs of pilots, navigators, and gunners of the Pe-8, Il-4, B-25, and A-20 bombers. The crews of these aircraft carried out the widest variety of missions—raids on railway junctions, capitals of the opposing states, dropping agents into the enemy’s rear, torpedo and high-wing attacks on enemy ships. What unites them is their shared heroic work. Success or failure depended on the attentiveness and focus of every crew member—from the aircraft commander, who “must be like an orchestra conductor,” to the tail gunner, who must counter the tail wheel in time so that during the takeoff the plane doesn’t veer to the side. Daily work, the strain of many-hour sorties, the fire of anti-aircraft guns and fighter attacks, abandoning a burning aircraft, and multi-day wandering across enemy territory—this is far from a complete list of the trials faced by the people whose stories are presented in this book.