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Old January 27th, 2008, 07:40 AM
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Arrow Re: mosquito light bomber wing intell ?

IMPO there is a big gap in the market here.....

The LNSF is mentioned in a number of 'Pathfinder' books, but there is no really comprehensive history devoted to it. A number of personal accounts are scattered through Martin Bowman's books ( 'Men Who Flew The Mosquito' for instance..) and Pen & Sword have recently published one or two books about individual pilots (eg 'Mosquito To Berlin').

Incredibly, there is only one book that I know of which is devoted to the LNSF, Chris Ward's self-published and ring-bound 'Mosquito Squadrons Of The Pathfinder Force' ( 1998 ), but this private effort is compiled mainly from ORBs with few personal accounts.It has very useful data about the Squadrons, though.

Which leaves Barry Blunt's one-man crusade to save the LNSF from historical oblivion.In a superb feat of personal research, he has compiled and self-published a series of books each devoted to a particular LNSF squadron. I have his books about 142, 162, 163, 571 and 608 Squadrons. These include personal accounts, maps, rare photos and much data. It seems almost criminal that no proper publisher could be found for these and Mr Blunt deserves a medal for this work ! I was lucky enough to get nearly all of these through Amazon a few years ago - I don't know whether they're still available and I've certainly never seen any in mainstream shops or at airshows.

As I said, a very big gap in the market and sadly, it may now be too late as many of the remarkable men who 'did Berlin twice in a night' are no longer around to tell their tales.....
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