Coming soon from Air World is From Bomber Command to Royal Command: A Lancaster Pilot’s Autobiography: Thousand Bomber Raid’s to Civil Aviation Trailblazer, which tells the story of Albert “Johnny” Meagher from his service flying dozens of missions over Germany through introducing the Bristol Britannia airliner into BOAC service and flying royalty.
Though he was in a reserved occupation, Albert Meagher, known to everyone as ‘Johnny’, volunteered for training as a pilot and was called up in July 1941. He duly completed his training as an RAF bomber pilot and joined the Avro Lancaster-equipped 61 Squadron in June 1942.
Johnny’s first operational sortie – an attack on Bremen – came on the 25th of the month. During the next six weeks Meahger’s crew attacked eleven more cities including Frankfurt, Munich, Kiel and the industrial targets in the Ruhr. On 16 January 1943, Bomber Command attacked Berlin, and for the raid the prominent American NBC reporter, Stan Richardson, was assigned to Meagher’s crew. After 34 sorties over Germany, it might be thought that Squadron Leader Meagher would have sought a less precarious posting. But nothing was further from his mind. Instead, he flew another 20 missions before finally leaving the frontline to become an instructor. Continue reading Bomber Command to Royal Command: A Lancaster Pilot’s Journey from Bomber Raids to Civil Aviation Pioneer
Please Note: This post contains an Amazon affiliate link. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.
