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This book is built around a collection of gun camera photographs that were part of the collection of Dennis Ormonde Butler, the commander of No.252 Squadron for two separate periods during the war in the Meditarranean, although they cover a longer period than just his time in command.
These pictures are an invaluable record of the squadron’s time in action. Most of them cover anti-shipping attacks, and we normally get several pictures from the same raid, giving us a genuine ‘pilot’s eye’ view of the action. Goss has researched the raids in question, so each day starts with a brief narrative of the raid explaining what each of the pictures is going to show us, followed by the pictures themselves. The pictures are impressively crisp and detailed, and have been left in their original format, so in some cases we almost get a feel for how the aircraft was banking and turning!
These pictures give a really vivid picture of how destructive Allied air power became as the war went on. We see attacks on ships at sea, ships in port, German garrison buildings and even an attempt to find and destroyer a solidary Condor still flying into Greece in 1945, which was hidden from view under olive trees but showed up very clearly in the gun camera pictures! This is a very impressive collection of photographs, made all the more useful by their common source, and by the detailed notes that accompany them.
Chapters
1 - 1942
2 - 1943
3 - 1944
4 - 1945
Author: Chris Goss
Edition: Paperback
Pages: 223
Publisher: Pen & Sword Aviation
Year: 2017