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Canberra Boys

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Oldstacker

Warrant Officer
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I'm currently reading the book 'Canberra Boys' by Andrew Brookes. It's a history of the Canberra forces from their inception to withdrawal told largely through the stories of the aircrew that were part of it. What I hadn't realised before (mainly because I had never thought about it) was that the Canberra was a part of the transition from WW2 bombing to modern warfare. Some crews trained on both 'classic' pathfinder techniques of dropping marker flares for a larger bomber force to bomb on and also the delivery of freefall nuclear bombs. The aircraft was very numerous (Akrotiri alone housed 4 full squadrons) and crews roamed widely across the '50s & 60's Commonwealth territories.

An interesting read.

I finished the book and, although it was interesting enough, ultimately it left me unsatisfied. What was missing, i felt were 2 key elements; some diagrams of the differing seating positions in the cockpits of the various marks, they were described but some drawings would have helped. The other nice to have would have been a list of all the sqdns/locations that operated them and their timelines, as a type they had a long history which I felt wasn't truly reflected.
 
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