Publication
Penguin Classics (2021), 496 p.
Original publication date
1970
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Description
The classic novel of the Second World War that relates in devastating detail the 24-hour story of an allied bombing raid. Bomber is a novel of war. There are no victors, no vanquished. There are simply those who remain alive, and those who die. Bomber follows the progress of an Allied air raid through a period of twenty-four hours in the summer of 1943. It portrays all the participants in a terrifying drama, both in the air and on the ground, in Britain and in Germany. In its documentary style, it is unique. In its emotional power it is overwhelming. Len Deighton has been equally acclaimed as a novelist and as an historian. In Bomber he has combined both talents to produce a masterpiece.
User reviews
LibraryThing member Stbalbach
Len Deighton would have been 14 years old at the time of this story. The war left a life-long impression being old enough to remember but a few years too young to be in the fight. He is of the generation that venerated their older siblings who had the experiences he never could - they were the
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heroes and his lot in life was to immortalize them. So it was he wrote a novel -- but not a hagiography. Deighton frames a single bombing raid and humanizes nearly everyone who took part - the British aviators, the German night-fighters and ground crew, their wives and girlfriends, even local people from the town that was bombed. In all over 100 characters. More than half the book goes by before the first plane lifts off as we gain an appreciation for the people and circumstances. Then he pitilessly and dispassionately kills most of them off, or scarred for life. We also learn the monetary cost of this single bombing run is astronomical. At the same time, the raid resulted in no benefit or had any historical importance. Show Less
LibraryThing member sloopjonb
Kingsley Amis called this one of the best ten books of the 20th century, and I'm not going to argue. Deighton normally writes agreeable spy and war fiction, but this is on a higher plane (no pun intended). The story of Creaking Door, Joe for King, The Volkswagen and all the other Lancasters flying
The audiobook of the 1995 BBC radio adaptation is (if possible) even better, being quite simply one of the finest examples of radio drama ever produced; Deighton's powerful story is interwoven with comments from real veterans of the bombing campaign (British and German) and the terrific acting, incredible atmosphere and superb adaptation combine into a solid gold masterpiece. Buy both book and CD, and enhance the quality of your library.
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out of Warley Fen seems to have tapped a deep root of emotion in Deighton, leading him to write a book that for sheer emotional engagement has few parallels. He writes above himself consistently, making the characters live - and die - for you in a way few if any writers could equal. The story is by turns amusing, interesting, and in the end horrifying. I find it hard to believe that anyone could read this without being deeply moved. If Deighton could write like this all the time, he would be acclaimed as one of the greatest novelists of the age; he never reaches such heights in any other work, but I for one am glad he did it once.The audiobook of the 1995 BBC radio adaptation is (if possible) even better, being quite simply one of the finest examples of radio drama ever produced; Deighton's powerful story is interwoven with comments from real veterans of the bombing campaign (British and German) and the terrific acting, incredible atmosphere and superb adaptation combine into a solid gold masterpiece. Buy both book and CD, and enhance the quality of your library.
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LibraryThing member Rynooo
I really can't understand all the praise for this book.
There's very little character development and page upon page of insufferable technical detail. All the characters have exactly the same tone of voice apart from those whose accents are written with abysmal phonetics. Virtually nothing happens
Frankly, I found it dull from start to finish. Really not my cup of tea.
There's very little character development and page upon page of insufferable technical detail. All the characters have exactly the same tone of voice apart from those whose accents are written with abysmal phonetics. Virtually nothing happens
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until over half way through. Yes, the deaths are described in cold detail, but that doesn't make them interesting.Frankly, I found it dull from start to finish. Really not my cup of tea.
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LibraryThing member gbsallery
Thoroughly researched, detailed, sensitive and therefore terrifying. Compulsory reading for those who have a fascination with aircraft, organisations, morality or just humanity.
LibraryThing member ecw0647
The title of this book implies it's the story of a single British bomber crew flying over Germany during 1943. It's much more. Deighton, known for his in-depth research, has given us a very realistic portrayal of both sides, the families of the bomber crews, the German citizens and defenders.
British strategy was to drop bombs in the center of cities, usually targeting more civilians than military installations and to mix in lots of incendiaries and horrible phosphorous bombs to increase the damage. The soldiers of both sides are beleaguered by insidious forces in command. On the German side, Himmel, one of the best night-fighter pilots has stolen some medical documents that expose SS medical researchers using concentration camp as human guinea pigs in freezing experiments, so the Abwehr and Sicherheitsdienst want him arrested. In Britain, Lambert has the temerity to want to be with his wife rather than play cricket for the squadron team in an important match. He's also something of a rebel and because of that is being labeled LMF (Lacking Moral Fiber), i.e., a coward.
In the meantime, the farmers and citizens bemoan the loss of excellent farmland to huge airfields, land they know will never be returned. Neither are the citizens without flaws, as they funnel stolen and looted goods into their own pockets.
I particularly enjoyed one exchange. August Bach, a German pilot, is returning to his base with his friend, Max, when they are held up by a convoy directed by Vichy police.
"A Frenchman," said Max angrily. "They are a logical race. They should make good traffic police."
"Huh," said Max. "Logical. They put a knife between your ribs and spend an hour explaining the rational necessity of doing it."
"That sounds like a lot of Germans I know."
"No, a German puts a knife into your ribs and weeps a sea of regretful tears."
"August smiled. "And after the Englishman has wielded the knife? He says, 'Knife? What knife?' "
Sometimes the horror of war is brought home more vividly by almost dispassionately describing the raw facts. For example, a crew member’s chute fails to open after bailing out from his Lancaster. Falling from 16,000 feet at 120 miles per hour (his body's terminal velocity) he hits the ground in 90 seconds and makes an indentation 12 inches deep.
Neither side is favored in this work. Deighton read several hundred books in preparation and interviewed many survivors and the epilogue tells us where they are today. He focuses on the shared humanity and suffering, selflessness and heroism endemic to war. This book rivals Slaughterhouse Five and Hiroshima as a statement of the horror and stupidity of war.
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Soldiers on both sides are frustrated by awkward interpersonal relationships and comrades with differing motivations. Deighton follows the crews of several bombers, sent on night-time raid against the Ruhr. Lacking night-vision goggles the crews had to release their bombs guided by flares dropped by scout planes. On this raid, the scout plane is shot down and its flares released short of the intended target, on the innocuous little town of Altgarten — of no military significance. British strategy was to drop bombs in the center of cities, usually targeting more civilians than military installations and to mix in lots of incendiaries and horrible phosphorous bombs to increase the damage. The soldiers of both sides are beleaguered by insidious forces in command. On the German side, Himmel, one of the best night-fighter pilots has stolen some medical documents that expose SS medical researchers using concentration camp as human guinea pigs in freezing experiments, so the Abwehr and Sicherheitsdienst want him arrested. In Britain, Lambert has the temerity to want to be with his wife rather than play cricket for the squadron team in an important match. He's also something of a rebel and because of that is being labeled LMF (Lacking Moral Fiber), i.e., a coward.
In the meantime, the farmers and citizens bemoan the loss of excellent farmland to huge airfields, land they know will never be returned. Neither are the citizens without flaws, as they funnel stolen and looted goods into their own pockets.
I particularly enjoyed one exchange. August Bach, a German pilot, is returning to his base with his friend, Max, when they are held up by a convoy directed by Vichy police.
"A Frenchman," said Max angrily. "They are a logical race. They should make good traffic police."
"Huh," said Max. "Logical. They put a knife between your ribs and spend an hour explaining the rational necessity of doing it."
"That sounds like a lot of Germans I know."
"No, a German puts a knife into your ribs and weeps a sea of regretful tears."
"August smiled. "And after the Englishman has wielded the knife? He says, 'Knife? What knife?' "
Sometimes the horror of war is brought home more vividly by almost dispassionately describing the raw facts. For example, a crew member’s chute fails to open after bailing out from his Lancaster. Falling from 16,000 feet at 120 miles per hour (his body's terminal velocity) he hits the ground in 90 seconds and makes an indentation 12 inches deep.
Neither side is favored in this work. Deighton read several hundred books in preparation and interviewed many survivors and the epilogue tells us where they are today. He focuses on the shared humanity and suffering, selflessness and heroism endemic to war. This book rivals Slaughterhouse Five and Hiroshima as a statement of the horror and stupidity of war.
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LibraryThing member arubabookwoman
This is the story of an RAF bombing raid--the hours leading up to the raid, the raid itself, and the aftermath, told from multiple points of view, including the pilots and crews at the RAF base, the pilots and crews at the Luftwaffe fighter base, the German radar base on the coast of the
It's easy to forget that aviation was still in its infancy during WW II, and the mechanical detail about the difficulties of flying the planes was fascinating, even to me. Deighton conveys the sense of helplessness of the pilots flying in total darkness (the ideal circumstances for such raids and there was no such thing as night vision goggles), knowing that another plane might be only inches away, but nevertheless invisible. Navigation was also rudimentary, and there were apparently many misdirected bombs. This particular raid was directed toward the industrial Ruhr Valley, but due to mismarking of the target, the bombs were actually dropped on a small residential civilian town with no military value.
To a certain extent, the novel functions as an antiwar novel in that it graphically shows the horrors of war from both sides in presenting a single typical night of war in England, in Germany, and in the air. I recently read A God in Ruins, a novel about an RAF pilot who experienced many of the same sorts of circumstances described in this book. In that book, Teddy, the pilot, reflected many times in his later life on the implications of his actions as a bomber pilot, knowing that he was responsible for many civilian deaths.
Highly recommended.
4 stars
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Netherlands tracking the bombers, and the inhabitants of a small Germany town--not the target but the place where the bombs were actually dropped. The novel is full of accurate historical detail, but reads like a thriller, with dozens of characters and many storylines. My interest was held through-out the book, and I read compulsively.It's easy to forget that aviation was still in its infancy during WW II, and the mechanical detail about the difficulties of flying the planes was fascinating, even to me. Deighton conveys the sense of helplessness of the pilots flying in total darkness (the ideal circumstances for such raids and there was no such thing as night vision goggles), knowing that another plane might be only inches away, but nevertheless invisible. Navigation was also rudimentary, and there were apparently many misdirected bombs. This particular raid was directed toward the industrial Ruhr Valley, but due to mismarking of the target, the bombs were actually dropped on a small residential civilian town with no military value.
To a certain extent, the novel functions as an antiwar novel in that it graphically shows the horrors of war from both sides in presenting a single typical night of war in England, in Germany, and in the air. I recently read A God in Ruins, a novel about an RAF pilot who experienced many of the same sorts of circumstances described in this book. In that book, Teddy, the pilot, reflected many times in his later life on the implications of his actions as a bomber pilot, knowing that he was responsible for many civilian deaths.
Highly recommended.
4 stars
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LibraryThing member RajivC
This is indeed a very good book, and I like it even though it did not grip me emotionally.
The style of writing, somewhat journalistic, is seemingly simple and yet it does so much to portray the pilots and protagonists in such a human manner.
What I also like is the somewhat matter of fact manner in
The epilogue is a masterpiece. We forget what happens to people after the war. The epilogue is a masterly link to this. It makes it so very human and tragic.
The style of writing, somewhat journalistic, is seemingly simple and yet it does so much to portray the pilots and protagonists in such a human manner.
What I also like is the somewhat matter of fact manner in
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which Len Deighton describes some of the deaths. The almost deadpan nature of the writing brings out the horror of the war and death much more graphically than an overly emotional bit of writing would.The epilogue is a masterpiece. We forget what happens to people after the war. The epilogue is a masterly link to this. It makes it so very human and tragic.
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LibraryThing member Ken-Me-Old-Mate
This was one of those books that were popular when I was a young man. I always assumed that it was another of those Day of The Jackal type of action novels. So I was surprised to read it and discover that it was nothing like that at all.
It is about 24 hours in the life of an airbase that runs
It details the methods used to create the most destruction and loss of life amongst the civilian targets, there is little pretense about military targets. I think the thing that astounded me the most was to learn that while the first bombers were dropping their load over the target others were still queueing to take off back in East Anglia, mission of 1500 planes were not uncommon.
It is about 24 hours in the life of an airbase that runs
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bombing raids over Germany at the end of WW2. It has all the undercurrents of class that you’d expect with a group of men conscripted into service. I remember reading once that conscription was the last time that classes mixed in England. However, class is a sub-plot to this book. It deals with the simple horrors of the mass bombings that took place over Germany at the end of the war.It details the methods used to create the most destruction and loss of life amongst the civilian targets, there is little pretense about military targets. I think the thing that astounded me the most was to learn that while the first bombers were dropping their load over the target others were still queueing to take off back in East Anglia, mission of 1500 planes were not uncommon.
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LibraryThing member MacDad
A few months ago, I was inspired by an article about the novels of Len Deighton to seek out some of his books. My goal was to pick up a secondhand copy of one of his Harry Palmer novels, but when I searched for them in my nearby used bookstore I found none on offer. Among his books they did have,
At first, I wasn’t impressed. Deighton takes his time building up to the main event, spending a little over half of the book recounting a day in the lives of both the British aircrews and the Germans who would be involved in the attack. Yet this proves important to his goal, as doing so invests the reader emotionally in his subjects. There are no outright heroes or villains in his book, just flawed people caught up in the war around them. Though they know that the prospects for death loom over them, Deighton shows how they endeavor to get on with their lives and work towards futures that could be taken from them at any moment.
Having then built up a range of characters in the first half of the book, Deighton then spends the rest of it on the raid and its aftermath. It’s an incredibly detailed account that reflects a considerable amount of research, yet Deighton never lets the details of Lancaster design or German air defense operations overwhelm the text. His focus remains resolutely on his characters, as we see the people with whom we’ve become familiar interact with each other as strangers. Known to us, their actions impact each other anonymously, showing how war could be both personal and impersonal at the same time.
That Deighton has invested thought in developing his characters is reflected at the end of the book, in which he provides brief summaries of the subsequent fates of the survivors of the attack. It’s a coda that serves as further evidence of how much effort he put into this fine work, which serves as a powerful commentary on the horrors of war. Because for all of Deighton’s obvious admiration for the boys who flew for Bomber Command, it’s the tragedies of their mission that stand out most dramatically after the last page.
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though, was his novel about a Bomber Command raid on a German town. As it was among the novels praised by the author of the article I decided to give a try.At first, I wasn’t impressed. Deighton takes his time building up to the main event, spending a little over half of the book recounting a day in the lives of both the British aircrews and the Germans who would be involved in the attack. Yet this proves important to his goal, as doing so invests the reader emotionally in his subjects. There are no outright heroes or villains in his book, just flawed people caught up in the war around them. Though they know that the prospects for death loom over them, Deighton shows how they endeavor to get on with their lives and work towards futures that could be taken from them at any moment.
Having then built up a range of characters in the first half of the book, Deighton then spends the rest of it on the raid and its aftermath. It’s an incredibly detailed account that reflects a considerable amount of research, yet Deighton never lets the details of Lancaster design or German air defense operations overwhelm the text. His focus remains resolutely on his characters, as we see the people with whom we’ve become familiar interact with each other as strangers. Known to us, their actions impact each other anonymously, showing how war could be both personal and impersonal at the same time.
That Deighton has invested thought in developing his characters is reflected at the end of the book, in which he provides brief summaries of the subsequent fates of the survivors of the attack. It’s a coda that serves as further evidence of how much effort he put into this fine work, which serves as a powerful commentary on the horrors of war. Because for all of Deighton’s obvious admiration for the boys who flew for Bomber Command, it’s the tragedies of their mission that stand out most dramatically after the last page.
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Media reviews
New Statesman
Bomber was the clearest proof that Deighton possessed an unmatched gift for analysing complex systems. How the RAF went about the sad business of burning Germany by night, and how the Germans tried to stop them doing it, formed an elaborate, interlocking, technology-intensive closed system which
The weakness of Bomber lay in its characters. Deighton invented a representative battle and staffed it with what he fancied were representative types. Actually they weren’t as clumsily drawn as you might think. Deighton is not quite as bad at character as the critics say, just as John le Carré is not quite as good. A book like Yesterday’s Spy, one of Deighton’s recent fictions, is not only stronger on action than le Carré’s later work, but features more believable people. The cast-list of Close-Up is indeed hopelessly makeshift, but the characters flying around in Bomber, though divided up and labelled in what looks like a rough-and-ready way, are deployed with some cunning to bring out the relevant tensions. You could be excused, however, for not connecting them to the real world.
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nobody before Deighton had ever succeeded in bringing back to life. The sinister poetic force of the original events had not been captured by the official historians, while the full facts were either abridged or distorted in the pop memoirs. Deighton got everything in. I can remember reading the book in a single night, marvelling at the intensity of detail. He even knew what colour flashes the bombs made when they went off. (Like most members of the generation growing up after the war, I had always assumed — because of news reels — that the bombs had exploded in black and white.)The weakness of Bomber lay in its characters. Deighton invented a representative battle and staffed it with what he fancied were representative types. Actually they weren’t as clumsily drawn as you might think. Deighton is not quite as bad at character as the critics say, just as John le Carré is not quite as good. A book like Yesterday’s Spy, one of Deighton’s recent fictions, is not only stronger on action than le Carré’s later work, but features more believable people. The cast-list of Close-Up is indeed hopelessly makeshift, but the characters flying around in Bomber, though divided up and labelled in what looks like a rough-and-ready way, are deployed with some cunning to bring out the relevant tensions. You could be excused, however, for not connecting them to the real world.
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Language
Original language
English
ISBN
9780241493700
Physical description
496 p.; 7.8 inches
Pages
496