Dambuster: The Life of Guy Gibson VC

FEW MEN HAVE A BETTER CLAIM TO BE CALLED A LEGEND

IN THEIR OWN LIFETIME THAN GUY GIBSON.

Leader of the famous Dambuster Raid of May 1943, which became

part of the popular folklore of the Second World War after the film

in which Richard Todd took the part of the hero, Gibson himself

was tragically in an air crash in 1944.

Born in India in 1918 and brought up in England, Guy Gibson

joined the RAF in November 1936. Thereafter his career can be seen

as a battle between, on the one hand, his uncertain temperament and

less than ideal private life, and, on the other, his undoubted skills as

an airman and as a leader of men.

The war was to bring him adventure and, later, fame. He took part in

the first aerial attack of the war, on the Kiel Canal; he served in

Fighter Command and then, in 1943, came the famous raid on the

Mohne and Eder dams for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross.

By now a hero of international fame, he was sent on a Public

Relations tour of North America, but he was above all a flyer and,

refusing to remain grounded, he died an airman’s death.

This new edition, which draws on conversations with members of

Gibson’s family and on notes made by his widow, expands upon his

early life in a severely dysfunctional family, his unhappy marriage and

the possible reason for his untimely death in September 1944.