Inside History Issue 10

THE PATHFINDERS:
THE ELITE RAF FORCE THAT
TURNED THE TIDE OF WWII
WILL IREDALE
Will Iredale tells the incredible story of
the crack team of ordinary men and women,
from a range of nations, who revolutionised
the efficiency of the Allies' air campaign over
mainland Europe and helped to deliver the
decisive victory over Nazi Germany.
A secret force of 20,000 servicemen, often
teenagers or in their early twenties, the
Pathfinders was the corps d’elite of Britain’s air
bombing campaign that elevated Bomber
Command from an impotent force on the
cusp of disintegration in 1942 to one capable
of razing whole German cities to the ground in
a single night, striking with devastating
accuracy, inspiring fear and loathing in Hitler's
senior command.
At the very heart of the Pathfinders’ formation,
evolution and ongoing survival lay a battle of
alpha-male personalities, giant egos and
entrenched rivalries. This book reveals the
fascinating story of how the Pathfinder force
was created and how it became a pawn in a
bitter power struggle between senior
commanders which threatened to tear
Bomber Command apart.
With exclusive interviews with remaining
survivors, personal diaries, previously
classified records and never-before seen
photographs, The Pathfinders brings to life the
characters of the young airmen and women
who took to the skies in legendary British
aircraft such as the Lancaster and the
Mosquito, facing almost unimaginable levels of
violence from enemy fighter planes to strike at
the heart of the Nazi war machine.
The secret of this elite squadron’s success was
an unlikely combination of characters,
including a humble university chemistry
lecturer and fireworks boffin, a clairvoyant
Scottish scientist who invented the world’s first
bombing device that could see in the dark,
and an abrasive Australian cowboy considered
to be one of the most talented airmen of the
war.
This riveting book also tells the tales of the
exceptionally brave effort made by thousands
of ordinary young men thrust into
extraordinary circumstances as Pathfinders,
who didn’t know or really care about the
political machinations of their bosses. Their
fight was for survival and their job was clear: to
fly over enemy territory to locate and ‘mark’
targets in the dark so that the main force of
Bomber Command’s aircraft following behind
could bomb as accurately as possible.
We meet Ulric Cross, from Trinidad, a
Mosquito Navigator flying in the Night Light
Striking Force, who became the most
decorated West Indian of the Second World
War. Dubbed ‘The Black Hornet’, he flew
dozens of dangerous missions over enemy
territory, avoiding being killed and helping
prevent up to 200 bombers being shot down
in a daring mission over Berlin in 1943. We are
also introduced to one of the last Pathfinders
still alive today - Geordie Lancaster pilot Ernie
Holmes, who reveals the astonishing story of
how he was blown out of his Lancaster
bomber at 17,000 feet and spent a month on
the run before being betrayed to the Gestapo.
And Colin Bell, one of the last surviving Second
World War Mosquito pilots, and now aged
100, who flew fifty operations over Nazi
Germany and who reveals how he cheated
death at the hands of a German Luftwaffe jet
fighter almost 80 years ago.
Thanks almost exclusively to the Pathfinders,
the numbers of Bomber Command crews
reaching their targets rose from as low as 25
per cent in August 1942 to 95 per cent in
some operations in April 1945. This increasing
accuracy played a critical role in the precision
bombing ahead of the Allied D-Day invasion in
June 1944 and the advance across Europe.
The huge impact made by the Pathfinders
force, and its contribution towards the overall
war effort, is perhaps best summed up by a
newspaper article published July 1944 in which
the journalist wrote:
“The Pathfinders are the aces of Bomber
Command. Without them Bomber Command
could never be the devastating force it is
today. Without them the strategic long‐range
hammering of German cities could never have
taken place during the last two years. Without
them the softening‐up of the enemy’s
communication lines, the smashing of railway
centres in the occupied countries to produce
the chaos that prepared the way for our
invasion, could never have happened.”
Alex Hippisley-Cox is the PR representative for
the Daily Mail Chalke Valley History Festival
Publisher: WH Allen
ISBN: 9780753557808
Number of pages: 448
Weight: 723g
Dimensions: 240 x 40 x 162mm
INSIDE HISTORY 57