Ian McLachlan

This book, subtitled “Eye-witness accounts from American airmen and British civilians of the perils of war” is an unusual history. Author Zorn was a photographer for the 1st Strategic Air Depot at Honington in Suffolk, England. A major part of his work consisted of documenting bomber crash sites for damage assessment reports and official records. At the end of the war, the incidents recorded were closed and the bombers in the pictures were obsolescent and the pictures and documentation were ordered destroyed. Thinking his pictures might have historical value, Zorn kept his prints and negatives and shipped them home.

Some twenty year later the field of aviation archaeology was in full flower and a major interest of the field was the documentation and excavation of crash sites. Zorn’s pictures were of extreme interest to members of this profession and one of the researchers in this field, McLachlan, teamed up with Zorn to produce this book. The end result is this 45 chapter book.

Each chapter recounts the circumstances and the aftermath of a crash as told by eyewitnesses, survivors, next of kin, and official reports. In addition to photographs of the crash each chapter contains (where possible) photographs of the eyewitnesses at the time of the crash as well as photos of crew members and occasionally the aircraft before the crash. The book is well written. The author’s narrative style conveys the immediacy of the horror of the incident without overstatement.… (altro)