Warbird Information Exchange

1/4 - Into the Whirlwind

Following the success of Spitfire Ace earlier this year, Channel 4 has moved on to bombers in its efforts to teach the video-game generation about the war in the air. This time round, the grandchildren of five bomber command airmen will be trained up to crew a B17 flying fortress. And one lucky trainee will get the chance to fly a Lancaster - one of two in the world still flying.

Historian Stephen Bungay, always a good contributor, sets the scene by pointing out that during the war, the people RAF fighter pilots admired most were not other fighter pilots but bomber crews, or as one of them puts it, "We had all the glory, but they had the guts." Sure enough, hearing veteran gunners, navigators and pilots talking about their nerve-shredding sorties makes you puff your cheeks in wonder. It's this cocktail of moving oral history and reality show - which young hotshot will get to be the pilot? - that makes the series so unusual.

Did you see that one of the participants in 'Bomber crew' is a grandson of the rear gunner who baled out of a Lancaster from 20,000 ft without a parachute & survived!