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Don Charlwood (1915–2012)

Autore di All the green year

15+ opere 314 membri 5 recensioni

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Fonte dell'immagine: Don Charlwood RAAF

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A outstanding biography of a RAAF aircrew a serving in Bomber Command in England around 1942. The author gives a well written account of what it felt being on Bomber Command in a period of high crew losses. The focus is by far more on the emotions, feelings and comradeship going to and from the target, training and preparing at the base rather than minute detail of the actual raids. Leaves taken while chasing the elusive 30 missions allows for reflections on relationships to people, countryside and the moral aspects of the war.
While most of the book covers these reflections, the tension of facing likely death is always with the reader and makes the book a classic for anyone wanting to know what the war was like for aircrew flying over Germany and Italy in those dark days.
… (altro)
½
 
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Daniel_M_Oz | 1 altra recensione | Dec 6, 2023 |
First published in 1956, Don Charlwood's 'No Moon Tonight', a fictionalised memoir of his experiences in Bomber Command in the Second World War became a classic. Moving forward to 1991 the author revisits this experience in a non fiction autobiography 'Journey into Night'. This book is very much a memorial to those with whom he served and who paid the highest price, incorporating photographs and letters from those times.

Enlisting in the RAAF in 1941, after completing his initial training in Australia, the author joined a draft of 20 young men bound for Canada to be trained as Navigators under the Empire Air Training Scheme. By 1942, having survived his Operational Training Unit flying Wellingtons, he joined 103 Squadron RAF which was in the process of converting from Halifaxes to Lancasters, his crew made up of another Australian and five Englishmen. What follows is the growing psychological tension of months of war where friends and comrades lives are seemingly randomly extinguished on operations, and his crew creeps towards the 30 missions they are required to complete an operational tour, his crew becoming the first in the squadron to do so in 9 months.

Towards the end of the book the author deals with some of the demons that perhaps haunted him since. Especially jarring is the moral criticism of Bomber Command's operations from the people who first supported them, and the contention at home that the war in the air in Europe was somehow easier, if not glamorous. Hard to reconcile with the fact that of the 20 young men the author left home with, only 5 would live to see Australia again.

Autographed Copy purchased second hand by the Reviewer from TIME Booksellers, Somerville.
… (altro)
 
Segnalato
Bushwhacked | Jan 28, 2022 |
This book was a staple novel on children's school reading lists in Australia in the 1960's and 1970's. Curiously however, despite being a child for at least part of that time, I had actually never read it until now, as far as I can recall. The novel itself is a 'coming of age' story set in 1929 Australia, in a semi fictionalised locality in which I actually grew up some 50-60 years later, hence the appeal of the book to me now. I enjoyed very much being able to connect with the 'place' in which the book was set as much as the characters. I'm not sure whether the book is too remote in time now to appeal to a present day young audience, but there is perhaps enough adventure and excitement and familiarity of feeling and experience that it still may appeal to boys of a certain age.

- Copy purchased by the Reviewer, $A 12.00 from The Paperback Bookshop, Bourke Street, Melbourne.

Postscript - the author, Don Charlwood, served in Bomber Command in the Second World War, and his fictionalised memoir, No Moon Tonight, is also regarded as a classic, and worth a look if you can find a copy.
… (altro)
 
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Bushwhacked | Nov 20, 2020 |
Emigration; Immigrants; Immigration
 
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yarrafaye | Apr 27, 2020 |

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Opere
15
Opere correlate
4
Utenti
314
Popolarità
#75,177
Voto
4.1
Recensioni
5
ISBN
48
Lingue
2

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