Large ImageThey Also Served - An Autobiography of a Wellington Bomber Pilot: Memoirs of a WWII RAF Bomber Command Pilot
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Piloting Vickers Wellingtons, Les completed two tours of duty under 104 squadron. These tours were in North Africa, the Middle East and in Italy. His service came to an end in 1946.
Proving to be highly proficient at seeking out the desired target, what becomes apparent in this book, is that Les became something of a prototype Pathfinder.
After 71 sorties, unbelievably Les was overlooked by his superior officer and received no formal recognition for his devoted service to his country. In They Also Served, the reader will find that each of his missions is identified and its results analysed in detail. This is a noteworthy account and is a significant record of historic importance.
Les originally wrote this moving account assisted by his wife, Mary. With a great deal of help on her part, a very limited number of books were originally published in hard cover in 1997. Sadly Mary passed away on July 20th 2012 aged 89 and after a short illness, Les too passed away, Christmas day 2015.
Nowadays it is difficult to comprehend the courage and bravery that was shown and continues to be demonstrated today by those who serve their country in the various armed forces around the world. It is undoubtedly through people like these that we now live in our free society. Not only should we never forget them, but we should always show gratitude towards them for what they have done and continue to do for us.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Les Hather was born in 1922 in Sheffield and was educated at Firth Park Grammar School, leaving on the outbreak of war. He volunteered at the age of 18 years for the Royal Air Force for pilot training and successfully completed 71 bombing sorties as an aircraft captain, being commissioned in the field during his second tour of operations. On leaving the Air Force in 1946 he entered the Civil Service from which he eventually retired from a senior management post at the age of 60 years. During the earlier years of employment he studied during the evenings and week-ends for a period of 3 years, obtaining the professional qualification of Associate of the Chartered Insurance Institute (ACII). He married Mary, a secretary, shortly before leaving the RAF. Mary was a war widow, tragically losing her first husband in a bombing raid.
DEDICATION FROM THE LATE AUTHOR This book is dedicated to my late beloved wife Mary, our family of four children and four grandchildren who I hope will never see another such conflict. To my two crews on 104 Squadron whose combined exceptional efforts helped in my survival. Finally to all those young colleagues on 205 Bomber Group, Middle East, including 104 Squadron, when so many were lost on operations. It is to the dead and the living who gave their best in the completion of their duties but gained little special recognition that this book is especially dedicated - for they also served. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I will always be grateful to my wife, Mary, for her patience and understanding during the long periods of solitude necessary in the three winters when I was occupied in writing the various drafts of this book. Her proof reading, observations and suggestions have been appreciated, also her typing of the final draft on to our computer. She never complained but encouraged me at all times in spite of my absences on several daily occasions to the Public Record Office for research purposes. The contributions by my daughter Margaret, son David and son-in-law Tony Dashwood, who has a better computer and printer than mine, assisted me enormously, as did the encouragement of the whole family. To our late and greatly missed Pat and Winde Windebank
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