A family account of wartime air-gunner attrition

Paul recalls that his father studied electronics at Manchester and joined the university air unit before being sent to air-gunnery training after war began. Broken turret glazing cut his wrist, and the resulting nerve damage led to discharge before his expected squadron posting. In the family account, only three of the 540 men associated with that training cohort survived the war. One other survivor became a member of the Guinea Pig Club after escaping an aircraft. The cohort figure is a remembered family claim, with no roster established in this exchange, and should be read in that form. The account gives a personal context to the subsequent disagreement over bombing's effectiveness and cost.