"Bomber", when the sky explodes

“Harry looked at the plane in its entire silvery length from tail to nose, admiring its graceful curves, and thought how lucky he was to be able to fly in such a beautiful aircraft. In theory, it was one of the safest aircraft in the USAAF, the United States Air Force, however safe an aircraft built to fight in war could be. It was equipped with thirteen powerful machine guns, and the ten men of the crew, except for the two pilots, were all machine gunners. No wonder, then, if the B-17 had been nicknamed the Flying Fortress…». In this way the English writer Paul Dowswell in his novel “ Bomber ” (Equilibri, 2022, pp. 336) recounts the encounter of Harry Friedman , a volunteer machine gunner in the American Air Force with “his” plane, the Macey May .

We are in 1943 and Harry is only 17 years old. He cheated on age at the military visit in order to enlist and realize his dream of flying. Soaring in the sky with a B-17, however, automatically turns into a nightmare when you have to bomb a target in enemy territory , under anti-aircraft fire and trying to escape from enemy fighters. Harry soon discovers that skill is not enough to survive when the sky around him "explodes" , "shatters" from artillery and machine gun fire. It takes luck and courage , a lot of courage. The courage that helps not going mad while around comrades are injured or killed.The courage that helps not to despair when the plane crashes causing Harry to find himself in Nazi-occupied France, with a one in a thousand chance of finding refuge and then a way home thanks to the French Resistance .

Dowswell, however, does not stop at the adventurous tale , a bit old-fashioned, the American war movie model. The English writer certainly loves to pace the events narrated and knows how to keep the reader's attention and tension alive. At the same time it transmits with an uncommon intensity the emotions that men and women involved in a merciless conflict like the Second World War had to feel. The pages in which Dowswell describes life aboard a B-17 in action are chilling - and not just because it was terribly cold in those planes - as he himself recounts in the interview in the appendix to the book: «The life of a crew plane can look glamorous and certainly much more comfortable than that of an ordinary foot soldier. But flying in an airplane , while as beautiful as the B-17 Flying Fortress, was actually an entirely terrifying experience , as I try to tell in this story. And it was also very uncomfortable. These planes were flying at great heights and it was freezing inside. Crewmen had to wear bulky flight suits and oxygen masks. And the deafening noise of the four propeller motors almost completely prevented conversation».

In addition, those planes, however powerful and majestic, offered no protection to those on board . To fly and carry tons of bombs they couldn't weigh themselves down with protections and armor: the bullets and shrapnel penetrated like a hot knife through butter. And with the same desire to tell the reality and brutality of the war, the English writer lingers over many pages to tell us how frightening it was for the population to find themselves under bombardment from very powerful planes. Finally, how dangerous and sometimes necessarily ruthless was the life led by members of the Resistance, men and women who, in addition to the numerous sabotage actions against the Nazis, helped the Allied aviators who fell with their planes to return clandestinely to England.

In the end, war, wherever you find yourself living and fighting it, can only appear cruel, an apocalypse shared by the millions of individuals who went through and were crossed by the Second World War .

Bomber is therefore a novel that tells, excites and makes you think... what more could you ask for in a good book?