The Strike Wings: Special Anti-Shipping Squadrons 1942-45
Coastal Command has never received the attention which has been lavished on the more famous branches of the Royal Air Force, and so the existence of the Strike Wings, formed in November 1942 to attack the heavily defended convoys carrying iron ore from Scandinavia to Germany, may be unknown to all but a few. In taking on these formidable targets, the Mosquito and Beaufighter squadrons suffered losses which were every bit as horrendous as those of Bomber Command, yet Roy Conyers Nesbit, himself a veteran of the Strike Wings, reveals that these anti-shipping sorties had a far more damaging effect on the German economy, sinking so many merchantmen that Hitler even considered stopping them altogether and relying on alternative means of supply. This is a superb book which not only explores the formation of the Strike Wings, the numerous sorties they carried out, and the weapons and tactics which they used, but it also sheds light on a vital yet much neglected chapter of the Second World War. Pegasus Archive