Published 20th May 2021 as part of the Wartime Classics series by The Imperial War Museum.
From the cover of the book:
In May 2021, IWM will publish two more novels in their Wartime Classics series which was launched in September 2019 to great acclaim, bringing the total novels in the series to ten. Each has been brought back into print to enable a new generation of readers to hear stories of those who experienced conflict firsthand.First published in 1944 and set over the course of one night in 1942, the story follows the fate of six crew members of a Wellington bomber ‘P for Pathfinder’ thrown together by chance from different corners of the world. They each reflect on the paths of their own lives, as they embark on a fateful mission deep into the heart of Nazi Germany.
Cecil Lewis’ novel examines the life of every man in turn, rendering a moving account of each as not merely a nameless crew member, but as an individual with a life lived, ‘a life precious to some, or one... these men with dreams and hopes and plans of things to come.”
Cecil Lewis was a flying instructor for the RAF during the Second World War where he taught hundreds of pilots to fly, including his own son. It was while doing this training that he wrote Pathfinders. Pupils were graded by the time it took them to fly solo – the best became fighters and then bombers. The RAF’s Bomber Command was the only branch of the armed forces that could take direct action against Germany and in 1942 the strategic air offensive changed from precision to area bombing where whole cities were targeted in order to destroy factories as well as the morale of those who worked in them.
The ‘pathfinders’ of the story were needed because often the bombers could not find the towns and cities they were destined to attack at night, let alone the industrial centres within. The crew used coloured marker flares to guide the bombers to their targets and the crews selected (often from the USA, Canada and NZ as well as Britain) were the best night flying crews who were able to find the target unaided. As a pilot who took part in both World Wars, Cecil Lewis brings his unique experience to bear, shining a light on this vital and sometimes contested aspect of Britain’s Second World War focusing on the sacrifice made by the Allied airmen it depicts.
IWM Senior Curator, Alan Jeffreys, has written an introduction to each book that provides context and the wider historical background. He says, ‘researching the Wartime Classics has been one of the most enjoyable projects I’ve worked on in my years at IWM. It’s been very exciting rediscovering these fantastic novels and helping to bring them to the wider readership they so deserve’.
Cecil Lewis was a flying instructor for the RAF during the Second World War where he taught hundreds of pilots to fly, including his own son. It was while doing this training that he wrote Pathfinders. Pupils were graded by the time it took them to fly solo – the best became fighters and then bombers. The RAF’s Bomber Command was the only branch of the armed forces that could take direct action against Germany and in 1942 the strategic air offensive changed from precision to area bombing where whole cities were targeted in order to destroy factories as well as the morale of those who worked in them.
The ‘pathfinders’ of the story were needed because often the bombers could not find the towns and cities they were destined to attack at night, let alone the industrial centres within. The crew used coloured marker flares to guide the bombers to their targets and the crews selected (often from the USA, Canada and NZ as well as Britain) were the best night flying crews who were able to find the target unaided. As a pilot who took part in both World Wars, Cecil Lewis brings his unique experience to bear, shining a light on this vital and sometimes contested aspect of Britain’s Second World War focusing on the sacrifice made by the Allied airmen it depicts.
IWM Senior Curator, Alan Jeffreys, has written an introduction to each book that provides context and the wider historical background. He says, ‘researching the Wartime Classics has been one of the most enjoyable projects I’ve worked on in my years at IWM. It’s been very exciting rediscovering these fantastic novels and helping to bring them to the wider readership they so deserve’.
***************************
I have always been a voracious reader and in my youth consumed all the reading material we had in our house; a great portion of which comprised the classic war novels my dad loved so much. Perhaps it might seem a little strange to think of a teenager in the 1980s reading well worn tomes like The Cruel Sea, Reach for the Sky, A Town Like Alice, Ice Cold in Alex and the like, but I used to be fascinated by the bravery, the comradeship, and the sense that the characters were all pulling together in a vital struggle that was so much bigger than themselves - the notion that there are always things worth laying your life on the line for. As a result, I find the series of books republished by the Imperial War Museum, under the Wartime Classics banner, so thoroughly nostalgic. They are so of their time, and I find this curiously moving.
Pathfinders is one of the latest in the series to come within my grasp, and tells the tale of a Wellington bomber crew given the difficult and dangerous task of being the 'pathfinder' for the pilots in their wake - marking out targets for the nighttime bombing raids that began with earnest in 1942, under the command of Air Chief Marshall Arthur 'Bomber' Harris.
The book rather sadly begins with a scene in which a trawler crew find the remains of a Wellington, named P for Pathfinder in their nets and speculate about the fate of the air crew that would have been aboard. Lewis then takes us into the story of the final, fateful mission of P for Pathfinder, as she leads a bombing raid on Kiel, interspersed with the musings and details of the lives of each of the six crew members.
As detailed in the fascinating foreword by IWM Senior Curator, Alan Jeffreys, the bombing raids orchestrated by 'Bomber' Harris have become rather contentious in recent years, due the the terrible toll the incendiary devices took on the towns and cities that were targeted, but in keeping with a novel published in 1944, we come to understand through the thoughts and deeds of the men aboard P for Pathfinder that they believe in the necessity of a strategy designed to wipe out Germany's industrial power as the only way to turn the tide of this interminable Second World War - even if they cannot allow themselves to dwell on the loss of life this brings.
However, this is not really a military story, even if this forms the spine of the novel. Instead it is more about the men who form the crew of P for Pathfinder. Through the intimate portraits Lewis paints with their stories, we see the lives of six very different men, crossing the barriers of class, wealth and nationality - six men who have come together in a single purpose.
In every sense, this novel takes me back to the very things that appealed to me about my own dad's collection of wartime classics, but it also brings in so much historical detail about the time these men were living through, and their very human hopes and dreams. It's both fascinating and poignant in equal measure, and this makes Pathfinders a great addition to the IWM series.
Pathfinders is available to buy now from your favourite book retailer in paperback format, or direct from the IWM Shop HERE.
Thank you to the IWM for sending me a paperback copy of this book in return for an honest review, and to Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.
About the author:
Cecil Lewis (1898 - 1997) was a British fighter ace in the First World War and his memoir Sagittarius Rising became a classic of the literature from that war, considered by many to be the definitive account of aerial combat. He was a flying instructor for the RAF during the Second World War where he taught hundreds of pilots to fly, including his own son.
After the war he was one of the founding executives of the BBC and enjoyed friendships with many of the creative figures of the day, including George Bernard Shaw, winning an Academy Award for co-writing the 1938 film adaptation of Shaw’s Pygmalion.
He had a long and varied career but retained a passion for flying all his life. In 1969 he sailed a boat to Corfu where he spent the remainder of his life, dying two months short of his 99th birthday.
He was the last surviving British fighter ace of the First World War.
No comments:
Post a Comment