The period that came to be known as the Battle of Berlin was the largest and longest RAF Bomber Command offensive against a single target.
It has been hotly debated for over sixty years whether the tactics of 'area bombing' were justified but one thing is certain; the intensity of the air attacks on Berlin and other German cities forced Nazi Germany to divert a huge amount of its manpower and industrial capacity to the task of putting up a viable defence, and this meant that there were fewer resources available in other theatres of war, which greatly assisted the Allies on the Russian and Mediterranean fronts.
However, the price paid by the aircrews of Bomber Command was staggering. Bomber Command lost 492 bombers on routes to, from and over Berlin on the sixteen raids that made up the Battle of Berlin and over 3,000 airmen were killed, many of them only in their late teens or early twenties.
To put this in perspective, more airmen lost their lives in the first four raids on Berlin than in the whole of the Battle of Britain.
Dennis West has pieced together all the information available to write an authoritative account of the battle and of the part played in it by one of the squadrons involved - No. 626 Squadron, flying from their base at RAF Wickenby in Lincolnshire.
Their squadron motto "To Strive and not to Yield" perfectly sums up the grit and determination shown by all the squadrons involved and in telling their story the entire battle is placed in a very real and human context.
