User:Lissajous/No moon tonight

Don Charlwood's novel "No moon tonight" follows his experiences as an Australian navigator flying in RAF Bomber Command during the second world war. Traces his steps from working as a Jackeroo in Victoria to the Empire Air Training Scheme in Edmonton Canada, his trip from Canada to war time Britain, traveling in convoy under the threat of bombers and U-boats, and thence to Bomber Command]]. Charlwood tracks the group of twenty Australian men he went through nav school with ("The Twenty") and their fortunes during the brief time they spent actively flying. Ultimately, of the twenty five returned home, xxx being lost. Charlwood himself says that in later years at reunions he found himself brielfy imagining that the losses were not that heavy, and then realising that he was looking at the small sparkling few who survived, above the enormous mass of aircrew who perished.

Elsham Wolds, 103 Squadron. Maddern. Joan Sutherland. Blue.

"What are the losses on each raid?" "They say five per cent." "Five per cent and we do thirty ops." He considered this thoughtfully. "We sort of end up owing something."