Boys at War

Russell Margerison writes of the dangerous but strangely unreal world of the Air Gunner, sitting high in the turret of a bomber over Europe, wrapped in several layers of clothes and awed by the destructive beauty of the scene below. His role was to keep a look out for enemy fighters and to take a shot at them if they gave him the chance. After many raids his plane was shot down. The author tells of his weeks on the run with the Belgian underground, followed by many months of captivity in Germany. He describes the long march of January 1945 when for 18 days nearly 1500 prisoners were marched through blizzards to another camp, surviving on an inch of soup a day. A few months later, the prisoners' new camp was 'liberated' by the Russians. The sequel added to the second edition tells of his return to Belgium many years after the War.