The novel Bomber is a roman à clef written by Len Deighton and published in the UK in 1970. It is the fictionalised account of the events of June 31 (sic), 1943 in which an RAF bombing raid on the Ruhr area of western Germany goes wrong. In each chapter, the plot is advanced by seeing the progress of the day through the eyes of protagonists. The action is fast and vivid while at the same time giving much factual information in an almost documentary fashion about the preparation and delivery of a heavy bomber raid, the defence against it and its impact on the unfortunate victims. The novel is weaker when it comes to characterisation; individuals are somewhat one-dimensional stereotypes to represent differing points of view and attitudes. A roman à clef or roman à clé (French for novel with a key) is a novel describing real-life events behind a façade of fiction. ... Leonard Cyril Deighton (born February 18, 1929) is a British historian and author of spy fiction and historical novels. ... 1970 was a common year starting on Thursday. ... 1943 is a common year starting on Friday. ... RAF is an abbreviation for: Royal Air Force -- the Air Force of the United Kingdom (see also Air Ministry) Red Army Fraction (Rote Armee Fraktion) -- a German terror organisation Rigas Autobusu Fabrika -- a factory making buses in Riga, Latvia Rapid Action Force in India Rachunarski Fakultet RAF is also an... The Ruhr in Essen-Kettwig The Ruhr is a large river in western Germany (North Rhine-Westphalia) starting near the town of Winterberg in Sauerland and ending in the Rhine in the city of Duisburg. ... // Plot in literature, theater, movies According to Aristotles Poetics, a plot in literature is the arrangement of incidents that (ideally) each follow plausibly from the other. ... The protagonist is the central figure of a story, and is often referred to as a storys main character. ... For the mathematical concept, see characterization (mathematics). ...

Plot

Sam Lambert is an experienced RAF pilot based at an East Anglian bomber station. He has been flying missions over Germany since the start of the war and as he nears his tour's end, he is developing stressful exhaustion. But his crew revere him and believe he is the one factor that will ensure they survive. RAF Bomber Command is organising a large air raid on Krefeld tonight. We join the bomber crews at rest and in preparation for the ordeal. The men, their planes, weapons, responsibilities, attitudes, thoughts and fears are described to us in great detail with minute historical accuracy. Norfolk and Suffolk, the core area of East Anglia. ... Bomber Command is an organizational military unit, generally subordinate to the air force of a country. ... Krefeld is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. ...

There are frequent references to weather conditions, meteorological phenomena and forecasts that add to the foreboding in the plot.

Meanwhile across the Channel in northwest Germany the small market town of Altgarten goes about its daily business, its residents and wartime guests aware of the war's progress but curiously untouched by it. They are even less aware of the horrors that will befall their town later.

We follow Oberleutnant August Bach returning from leave in Altgarten to his duties at the Freya radar installation on the remote Dutch coast looking out towards England. His job is to detect and track the Tommi Terrorfliegers on their night-time raids against the Fatherland then guiding by radio a Luftwaffe Nachtjagd (nightfighter) to intercept and attack. Freya radar was an early form of radar deployed by Nazi Germany during World War II, named after the Norse Goddess Freya. ... Royal motto: Dieu et mon droit (French: God and my right) Englands location within the UK Official language English de facto Capital London de facto Largest city London Area  - Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population  - Total (2001)  - Density Ranked 1st UK 49,138,831 377/km² Ethnicity... A night fighter is a fighter aircraft adapted for use at night, or in other times of bad visibility. ...

Back in Altgarten the burgermeister finalises preparations for his own birthday banquet. It is to be held in a cosy restaurant located in the timber built, medieval town square. We are introduced to the Altgarten TENO engineers who regularly work heroically in the nearby Ruhr cities following air raids, and the local fire crew, adequate for a small country town but useless against what is to come.

The bombs are loaded into the Lancasters, the German radars are allowed to "warm up", the aircrews adjust their night vision and everyone sits and waits and waits. Superstitions, rites and rituals are respected as the combatants ready themselves. Meanwhile Altgarten's people continue with their day-to-day routines.

Eventually the raid gets under way. The British bomber stream forms up and navigates its dogleg course avoiding known flak concentrations and searchlight batteries. As the bombers are pinpointed by German nightfighters, we discover in the minutest detail how tiny pieces of shrapnel from an 88mm anti-aircraft shell can destroy one of 750 Lancasters each costing more than £42,000 at 1943 prices. American troops man an anti-aircraft gun near the Algerian coastline in 1943 Anti-aircraft, or air defense, is any method of combating military aircraft from the ground. ...

Despite the meticulous planning, things inevitably go wrong immediately. A Lancaster almost crashes on take-off. A Junkers fighter crashes into the sea after hitting birds over the IJsselmeer. Another is shot down by a friendly flak-ship. A pathfinder Mosquito is downed and its marker bombs explode south east of Altgarten. With little flak and clear bombing conditions Christmas Tree marker pyrotechnics are placed with unusual accuracy. Creepback ensures the entire town of 5,000 inhabitants is precision carpet bombed by a force designed to destroy a city and a firestorm results. IJsselmeer seen from space The IJsselmeer (or Lake IJssel) is a shallow lake of some 1250 km² in the central Netherlands bordering the provinces of Flevoland, North Holland and Friesland, with an average depth of 5 to 6 m. ... The de Havilland Mosquito (the wooden wonder) was a military aircraft that excelled in a number of roles during World War II. It was a twin engine aircraft with the pilot and navigator sitting side-by-side. ... The tendency of bomber aircraft using optical bomb sites to release their weapons aimed at target markers before time leading to a gradual spread backwards along the bombing path of the concentration of bombing. ... This is an article about a specific circumstance of combustion. ...

The author maintains a clinically distanced vantage point, understating and implying the horror of the character's situations. Even so, the protagonists' injuries and deaths are described in the same detail as the airmen's tactics. Each successive event is clinically dissected and analysed almost as though in slow-motion. We discover how fragile is the barrier separating life and death for bombers and the bombed. We are left with a disgust of the futility and horror of war and the bureaucratic trivialities that dominate life for the survivors. Slow motion is an effect resulting from running film through a movie camera at faster-than-normal speed. ...

Viewpoints

• The crew of RAF Lancaster bomber, nicknamed "Creaking Door", particularly its pilot, Sgt Lambert
• August Bach, the officer-commanding of a Luftwaffe radar station on the Dutch coast
• Oberleutnant Victor Löwenherz, an aristocratic Lutwaffe night fighter pilot and his fellow crew members
• Bach's housekeeper/mistress, Anna-Luisa, and his infant son, Hansl, at their home in Altgarten, a small German village close to the Dutch border
• Altgarten's burgomaster, fire chief, civil defence (TENO) engineers and residents

Lancaster can refer to: Places In the United Kingdom: Lancaster, Lancashire (within the City of Lancaster) City of Lancaster In the United States: Lancaster, California Lancaster, Kansas Lancaster, Kentucky Lancaster, Massachusetts Lancaster, Minnesota Lancaster, Missouri Lancaster County, Nebraska Lancaster, New Hampshire Lancaster, New York: Lancaster (town), New York Lancaster (village... A bomber is a military aircraft designed to attack ground targets, primarily by dropping bombs. ... The word pilot has several meanings: In shipping, a pilot is someone who guides ships through the waters near a harbour, or especially narrow or otherwise dangerous coastal waters. ... The   Luftwaffe? (German: air force, IPA: [luftvafÉ™]) is the commonly used term for the German air force. ... This long range radar antenna (approximately 40m (130ft) in diameter) rotates on a track to observe activities near the horizon. ... A night fighter is a fighter aircraft adapted for use at night, or in other times of bad visibility. ... Technische Nothilfe (TENO or TN), lit: Technical Help in Need was a German organisation. ...

Trivia

• The novel, Bomber, is an early example of docudrama very thoroughly researched and a mine of detail even down to the 1943 price of a Lancaster bomber. Deighton himself claimed to have written more than half a million words in research notes.

• Bomber is probably one of the earliest printed works of fiction composed using a computer - an IBM 72IV with magnetic tape.

• The book's opening words: It was a bomber's sky: dry air, wind enough to clear the smoke, cloud broken enough to recognise a few stars have appeared in several quotation dictionaries.

• Kingsley Amis is said to have rated Bomber one of the 10 best books of the 20th century.

• The book was adapted into a radio drama by the BBC in 1995. The play was broadcast in several sections over the course of a single night, timed so that the events were broadcast at approximately the time they would really have occurred (though the section depicting the raid was broadcast in the late evening, rather then the early hours of the morning when it would really have happened). It was very highly praised as a superior example of its genre. Tom Baker led the cast as the narrator.