A God in Ruins
Page 45
The rationale behind the deliberate move away from attempted precision bombing of legitimate targets (near impossible at night with little technology) towards attacking the civilian population was that killing the workers in the factories and destroying their environment was itself a form of economic warfare. It was a campaign that began with the best of intentions—to avoid the attrition of the First World War trenches—and yet it became itself a war of attrition, escalating all the time, an ever-open maw that could never have enough—manpower, technology, raw materials—all of which might possibly have been more fruitfully directed elsewhere, particularly perhaps in those last months—almost apocalyptic for Europe—when Harris’s obsession with pulverizing a dying Germany into annihilation seems more like a biblical punishment than a military strategy (although I am not one of Harris’s detractors). Hindsight is indeed a wonderful thing but unfortunately it is unavailable to view in the midst of battle.
We have been plagued by questions about the morality of the strategic bombing offensive ever since the end of the war (aided perhaps by Churchill’s diplomatic back-pedalling from responsibility for the policy) and whether our war on savagery did not, in the end, become itself savage as we attacked the very people—the old, the young, women—that civilization is supposed to defend. But the bottom line is that war is savage. For everyone. Innocent or guilty.
This is a novel, not a polemic (and I am no historian) and I have accordingly left the doubts and ambiguities for the characters and the text to voice.
And, as a final note, I’m sure that most readers will recognize that Augustus owes a debt to William Brown of Just William fame. Augustus is a poorly drawn shade of William, who remains for me one of the greatest fictional characters ever created. Richmal Crompton, I salute you.
Acknowledgements
Lt. Col. M. Keech BEM R Signals
Squadron Leader Stephen Beddoes RAF
Suzanne Keyte, Archivist, Royal Albert Hall
Anne Thomson, Archivist, Newnham College, Cambridge
Ian Reed, Director of the Yorkshire Air Museum, who answered my (probably annoying) questions so fully.
The Yorkshire Air Museum (www.yorkshireairmuseum.org), based at Elvington on one of the many wartime airfields, is a wonderful place for anyone interested in the Halifax, or indeed the war in general. The museum has done a wonderful job of bringing the poor old “Halibag” back to life and I must thank Phil Kemp for the delightfully informative tour he gave me of the interior of Friday 13th—sadly not the original aircraft, which was sold for scrap like all the Halifaxes that survived the war.
And thanks also, of course, to my agent, Peter Straus, and my editor, Marianne Velmans, and everyone at Transworld, particularly Larry Finlay, Alison Barrow and Martin Myers. Thank you also to Reagan Arthur at Little, Brown, Kim Witherspoon at Inkwell Management, Kristin Cochrane at Doubleday Canada and Camilla Ferrier at the Marsh Agency.
It goes without saying that all mistakes, intentional or not, are mine.
Sources
Chorley, W. R., Bomber Command Losses of the Second World War, Vol. IV, 1943 (Midland Counties, 1996)
Chorley, W. R., Bomber Command Losses of the Second World War, Vol. V, 1943 (Midland Counties, 1997)
Chorley, W. R., Bomber Command Losses of the Second World War, Vol. IX, Roll of Honour (Midland Publishing, 2007)
Middlebrook, Martin and Everitt, Chris, The Bomber Command War Diaries: An Operational Reference Book 1939–1945 (Penguin, 1990)
Webster, Sir Charles and Frankland, Noble, The Strategic Air Offensive, Vols. I and II (The Naval and Military Press, 2006)
Hastings, Max, Bomber Command (Pan Books, 2010)
Overy, Richard, The Bombing War (Allen Lane, 2013)
Ashcroft, Michael, Heroes of the Skies (Headline, 2012)
Bishop, Patrick, Bomber Boys (Harper Perennial, 2007)
Delve, Ken, Bomber Command (Pen and Sword Aviation, 2005)
Jones, Geoffrey, Raider, the Halifax and Its Fliers (William Kimber, 1978)
Lomas, Harry, One Wing High, Halifax Bomber, the Navigator’s Story (Airlife, 1995)
Nichol, John and Rennell, Tony, Tail-End Charlies: The Last Battles of the Bomber War 1944–45 (Penguin, 2005)
Riva, R. V., Tail Gunner (Sutton, 2003)
Rolfe, Mel, Hell on Earth (Grub Street, 1999)
Taylor, James and Davidson, Martin, Bomber Crew (Hodder and Stoughton, 2004)
Wilson, Kevin, Bomber Boys (Cassell Military Paperbacks, 2005)
Wilson, Kevin, Men of Air: The Doomed Youth of Bomber Command, 1944 (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2007)
Lowe, Keith, Inferno: The Destruction of Hamburg, 1943 (Viking, 2007)
Messenger, Charles, Cologne: The First 1000 Bomber Raid (Ian Allan, 1982)
Middlebrook, Martin, The Battle of Hamburg (Penguin, 1984)
Middlebrook, Martin, The Nuremberg Raid (Pen and Sword Aviation, 2009)
Nichol, John, The Red Line (Harper Collins, 2013)
Ledig, Gert, Payback (Granta, 2003)
Sebald, W. G., On the Natural History of Destruction (Notting Hill Editions, 2012)
Beck, Pip, Keeping Watch (Crecy Publishing, 2004)
Lee, Janet, War Girls: The First Aid Nursing Yeomanry in the First World War (Manchester University Press, 2012)
Pickering, Sylvia, Bomber Command WAAF (Woodfield, 2004)
Blanchett, Chris, From Hull, Hell and Halifax: An Illustrated History of No. 6 Group, 1937–48 (Midland, 2006)
Chorley, W. R., In Brave Company: 158 Squadron Operations (W. R. Chorley, 1990)
Chorley, W. R., To See the Dawn Breaking: 76 Squadron Operations (W. R. Chorley, 1981)
Jones, Geoffrey, Night Flight: Halifax Squadrons at War (William Kimber, 1981)
Lake, John, Halifax Squadrons of World War Two (Osprey, 1999)
Otter, Patrick, Yorkshire Airfields in the Second World War (Countryside Books, 2007)
Pilot’s and Flight Engineer’s Notes, Halifax III and IV (Air Ministry, 1944)
Rapier, Brian, White Rose Base (Aero Litho, 1972)
Robinson, Ian, Home Is the Halifax (Grub Street, 2010)
Wadsworth, Michael, Heroes of Bomber Command, Yorkshire (Countryside Books, 2007)
Wingham, Tom, Halifax Down! (Grub Street, 2009)
Baden-Powell, Robert, Scouting for Boys (OUP, 2005)
Beer, Stewart, An Exaltation of Skylarks (SMH Books, 1995)
Cornell, Simon, Hare (Reaktion, 2007)
Danziger, Danny, The Goldfish Club (Sphere, 2012)
Hart-Davis, Duff, Fauna Britannica (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2002)
Mabey, Richard, Flora Britannica (Chatto and Windus, 1997)
McKay, Sinclair, The Secret Life of Bletchley Park (Aurum Press, 2011)
Wallen, Martin, Fox (Reaktion, 2006)
Williamson, Henry, The Story of a Norfolk Farm (Clive Holloway Books, 1941)
From the National Archives
The Operations Record Books for 76 Squadron—AIR/27/650 (May ’42 and December ’42), AIR/27/651 (February ’43 and December ’43), AIR/27/652 (March ’44)
DVDs
Forgotten Bombers of the Royal Air Force (Simply Home Entertainment, 2003)
Halifax at War (Simply Home Entertainment, 2010)
The History of Bomber Command (Delta Leisure Group, 2009)
Nightbombers (Oracle, 2003)
Now It Can Be Told (IWM, 2009)
The Royal Air Force at War, the unseen films vols. 1–3 (IWM, 2004)
Target for Tonight (IWM, 2007)
About the Author
KATE ATKINSON’s first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, was named England’s Whitbread Book of the Year in 1996. Since then, she has written eight more groundbreaking, bestselling books, most recently Life After Life. She lives in Edinburgh, Scotland.
ALSO BY KATE ATKINSON
Behind the Scenes at the Museum
Human Croquet
Emotionally Weird
Not the End of the World
One Good Turn
When Will There Be Good News?
Started Early, Took My Dog
Life After Life
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
Epigraph
30 March 1944: The Last Flight
1925: Alouette
1980: The Children of Adam
1947: This Unforgiving Winter
1939: Teddy’s War
1993: We That Are Left
1951: The Invisible Worm
1942–43: Teddy’s War
1982: The Courage of the Small Hours
1943: Teddy’s War
1960: His Little Unremembered Acts of Kindness and of Love
2012: Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace
30 March 1944: The Last Flight
2012: All the Way to Bright
2012: The Last Flight
1947: Daughters of Elysium
Author’s Note
Acknowledgements
Sources
About the Author
Also by Kate Atkinson
Newsletters
Copyright
Copyright
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2015 by Kate Costello, Ltd.
Cover design by Keith Hayes
Author photograph by Euan Myles
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First ebook edition: May 2015
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ISBN 978-0-316-34155-4
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