Down in the Drink: Their Deadliest Enemy Was the Sea
By (Author) Ralph Barker
Headline Publishing Group
Headline Review
1st November 2008
United Kingdom
General
Non Fiction
Autobiography: historical, political and military
940.544
Paperback
320
Width 129mm, Height 198mm, Spine 21mm
224g
Among those who fought in the ferocious battles for the skies during World War II, some shot down, or forced to ditch had to confront an exceptionally pitiless enemy: the sea. DOWN IN THE DRINK tells the astonishing stories of nine aircrews who suffered this horrifying plight. These are tales of bravery and resilience, loyalty and friendship.
The accounts of heroism and endurance in DOWN IN THE DRINK match any from that time. They are stories of men from all corners of the British Commonwealth fighting for survival against unimaginable odds. Their experiences give stirring proof that there is no limit to human courage.Ralph Barker served in the RAF during the war, in the course of which his Beaufort was hit in combat and he survived a crash on take-off in which his pilot and navigator were killed. After the war, he worked in civil aviation for a short time, before rejoining the RAF, to work in the secretariat until 1961. DOWN IN THE DRINK (1955) launched a successful career as a writer, in the course of which he has written over a dozen books on the RAF, books on terrorism and war at sea, and hundreds of feature articles for the Sunday Express".