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162misspelled the target as Nuremburg %u2013 twice. Would a junior flying officer on his first tour, really have had access to such precise information and, since it was surely classified, would he have recorded it in a diary? This was not the only occasion on which Muirhead comments on raids in, what seems to me to have been, surprising detail. The sort of statistical data to which he appears to have had privileged access did not begin to become public knowledge until the 1960s. While Muirhead appears to have been unusually well8informed in some respects, he is remarkably ill8informed in others. For instance, his belief that a Squadron Commander %u2018is not allowed to come on any op, no matter how comparatively safe it may sound%u2019 was quite without foundation. Furthermore, it says little for his powers of observation that No 12 Sqn%u2019s ORB records that his own CO, Wg Cdr John Nelson,1 flew seven operations during the time that Muirhead spent with the squadron, and on six of those occasions both crews actually participated in the same mission! These anomalies aside, the writings of this very junior officer reflect a most curious mindset. He devotes a substantial amount of space to inconsequential anecdotes and the pursuit of shallow youthful occupations, like high jinks in the Mess and drinking, not sparing to use the %u2018f%u2019 word, which is in marked contrast to his remarkable perceptiveness. For example, how many other 228year8olds had studied the Luftwaffe in sufficient depth to have been able to conclude that one of its major deficiencies was the inadequacy of its strategic bomber force? Post8war analysts would eventually endorse this conclusion, of course, but Muirhead had seen the light before the end of July 1944. This early date is all the more remarkable in the light of Operation Steinbock %u2013 the five month %u2018Baby Blitz%u2019 aimed primarily at London, a strategic bombing offensive that the Germans had terminated as recently as May. Muirhead also seems to have had the gift of foresight. What was perhaps the most remarkable example of his prescience occurred at the end of his tour, in August 1944, when he claims that Wg Cdr Nelson 1 The evidence of the ORB aside, there is a photograph of Wg Cdr Nelson and his crew in Tim Mason%u2019s history of No 12 Sqn (Leads the Field; Lincoln, 1960). Why would a non8operational CO have a crew?