Comments: Softcover, 154 pages, 244 black-and-white photos
ISBN: 978-1-4738894-3-9
Price: $22.95
Publisher: Frontline Books/Pen & Sword
From the publisher: Drawing on a rare collection of photographs taken by the camera guns of Bristol Beaufighters deployed on ground-attack and anti-shipping operations, this book views missions against German and Italian forces over North Africa and the Mediterranean between 1942 and 1945.
Formed in the UK in November 1940 as Coastal Command’s first Beaufighter squadron, 252 Squadron, which also operated Bristol Blenheims until April 1941, was destined to spend most of its service in North Africa and the Mediterranean before being disbanded in Greece in December 1946.
One of the squadron’s commanding officers, Wing Commander Dennis Ormonde Butler, DFC, had the foresight to keep perfect examples of thousands of gun camera stills taken by the Beaufighter pilots under his command — thus preserving a history of the air and sea war that swirled around what are now popular holiday destinations such as Rhodes, Naxos, and Kos, and across the Greek islands as well as the Aegean and Ionian seas. Details of key missions and the crews who participated in them are drawn from Squadron records and combat reports.
FSM says: Mission narratives and dozens of photos of exploding ships.