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INTRODUCTION

With hindsight, I know exactly where and when I started this book. I was driving back to my newspaper in Kitchener at 4:30 p.m., November 11, 2002. I had just attended the funeral for my uncle, George Darling. He was a bomb-aimer on a Halifax bomber during the Second World War, and his pilot, Tom Lane, had delivered the eulogy.

As I drove on Highway 8, just outside of Kitchener, I realized that I didn’t know much about what my uncle had done during the war. I knew he had been shot down somewhere in Europe and that he had been a prisoner of war, but I didn’t know what happened to his bomber or what ordeals he had suffered. I decided to learn the details and write a story for my newspaper about him and his crew. I pieced the story together by reading his wartime diary and by interviewing Tom, as well as another member of the crew, Roy Macdonald. The Record printed the story a year later, a few days before Remembrance Day, 2003.

I thought I had finished writing about the war. Much to my surprise, I received phone calls and email messages encouraging me to write a book of similar stories. One such message came from Richard Rohmer, a Second World War pilot and a prolific writer. Apparently, I had erred in thinking that I had finished writing about the war.

That was six years ago. Since then, I have spoken to air force veterans who experienced horrific ordeals, and I have interviewed historians and archivists who provided additional information that I needed.

I hope this book is worthy of those who encouraged me to write it. Even more important, I hope it is worthy of the veterans whose stories appear in it.

Ian Darling

Kitchener, Ontario

March 2009