Page 161 - Demo

161in the summer of 1944. It is a very curious book, which left me wondering just how much of the text was actually written by Muirhead, as distinct from that which has been contributed by Swan. This is particularly true of the second, and much larger, section. Muirhead evidently recorded the basic details of his operational flights (date, target, bomb load, take off time, duration, height) in a note book along with comments under the headings of Flak, Searchlights and Enemy Aircraft, with a final remark or two conveying an overall impression of the sortie. These notes are all reproduced, embedded within the narrative of the %u2018diary%u2019, supported by a photograph of the page of the original note book recording the sortie flown on 25/26 July. Unfortunately, the comments in the photograph do not match those in the %u2018diary%u2019 %u2013 which must raise doubts about the fidelity of all of the other entries. There are other reasons for questioning the extent to which the original text has been %u2018edited%u2019. Since the diaries were never intended to be seen by anyone else (as stated on p190) why do they contain so many entries in which Muirhead explains to himself things that he already knows? Why, for instance, would a member of any crew feel it necessary to write, in a personal diary, %u2018the WOP (Sgt Dunn)%u2019? After flying twenty8seven sorties together, his name must surely have been pretty familiar. And why write %u2018an RDF station (later to be called radar)%u2019 and %u2018my Form 1250 (my RAF identity card)%u2019 and %u2018the Big City (which is what Berlin is called)%u2019 and %u2018%u2018Butch%u2019 (that%u2019s Air Marshall Sir Arthur Harris)%u2019? There are more of these, but why all this didacticism? Who is Muirhead informing? And I would have hoped that any RAF officer, even a VR, to have known that there is only one %u2018l%u2019 in marshal %u2013 and that %u2018SWO%u2019 stood for Station, not Senior, Warrant Officer. There are %u2018problems%u2019 with the content of the diaries too. On 1 April 1944 The Times reported that, from a force of %u2018nearer 1,000 than 900%u2019, Bomber Command had lost 94 aircraft during a raid on Nuremberg on 30/31 March. Two weeks later Flight magazine also reported the losses, but on the wrong date (29/30 March) and without hazarding a guess as to the size of the raid. This was five weeks before Muirhead had even joined an operational squadron, yet by 3 June he knew that the force despatched had actually numbered 795 aircraft and even the numbers engaged on clandestine supply8dropping sorties in support of the Resistance that same night, although he (or was it Swan?)