The last British Dambuster

I was anxious to fight. Hitler was the bastard that had started all this and he needed sorting out. We were under threat. Everything we stood for - our country, our families and our way of life - was being attacked by this maniac. He could not be allowed to win. So for me, and many others like me, there was no alternative. We were in a pickle and something had to be done. Johnny Johnson, the last British Dambuster alive to have taken part in one of the most daring and ingenious air raids of all time, is 92 years old and one of very few men who can directly recall the drama of that fateful night. He can also vividly remember his childhood spent working on a farm with his controlling father, the series of events that led him to the RAF and the rigorous training that followed. But it was the decision to join 617 Squadron and the events that followed that have truly stayed etched in his mind. On 16 May 1943, Johnny, alongside 132 specially selected comrades, took off from Scampton airbase in Lincolnshire. For 6 weeks they had been trained to fulfil one mission that was considered near impossible: to destroy three dams deep within Germany's Ruhr Valley. They were instructed to fly low and in formation, before carefully dropping a newly designed bomb using a unique method of attack. It was a risky mission but, against the odds, Johnny and his crew survived. Sadly, 53 comrades did not. For the first time, Johnny relives every moment of that fatal night - and the devastating aftermath - in his extraordinary memoir. He recalls with unique wit and insight the difficult training conducted in secrecy, the race against time to get ready before his finger hovered over the bomb's release button as the ground raced just 30 feet beneath him at 220 knots, and the sheer strength and bravery shown by a small squadron faced with great adversity and uncertainty. Johnny's story is like no other and will embody a whole squadron, leaving a lasting legacy for generations to come.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.