The Crew: The Story of a Lancaster Bomber Crew

The Crew, based on interviews with Ken Cook, the crew’s sole surviving member, recounts the wartime exploits of the members of an Avro Lancaster crew between 1942 and the war’s end. Gloucestershire-born bomb aimer Ken Cook, Australian pilot Jim Comans, Navigator Don Bowes, Upper Gunner George Widdis, Tail Gunner “Jock” Bolland, Flight Engineer Ken Randle and Radio Operator Roy Woollford were seven ordinary young men risking their lives in the dark skies above Hitler’s Reich. From their earliest beginnings through training in North America and the danger of the 45 bombing raids they flew with 97 Squadron, David Price describes the crew’s wartime experiences with human sympathy allied to a technical understanding of one of the RAF’s most iconic aircraft. The drama and anxiety of individual missions—to Kassel, Munich and Augsburg as well as Berlin—is evoked with thrilling immediacy; while the military events and strategic decisions are interwoven deftly with the narrative of the crew’s operational careers.