Catastrophic Success: Bomber Boys - Featuring Ewan and Colin McGregor

The Avro Lancaster Bomber

Ten months ago, I wrote about a documentary made by actor Ewan McGregor and his RAF-pilot brother Colin about World War II fliers called The Battle of Britain. At the time, I praised the good, if slight documentary that examined how the men who flew the Spitfires and Hawker Hurricanes saved the Allies' collective asses by preventing the Axis from winning the air war over England in 1940. Now comes the sequel, Bomber Boys (BBC/BFS Entertainment – 2012). Ewan and his brother are back, this time examining the successes and failures of RAF Bomber Command of what came after The Battle of Britain. It is also a love letter to what many consider the Allies best bomber aircraft, the Lancaster.

As with the first documentary, the film presents interviews with old men remembering their war years, in this case, as pilots, bombardiers or gunners on the legendary Lancaster bombers. The film also examines the role England's Bomber Command had in the various operations. In The Battle of Britain, the interviews and stories of the war were intercut with sequences of Colin McGregor learning to fly a Spitfire; in this film, the interviews and stories are intercut with Colin getting lessons so he can fly a Lancaster (of the 7000+ made there are only two left that can fly – one in the UK, one in Canada). The most controversial figure presented is Sir Arthur Harris, known universally as either Bomber or Butcher Harris, Commander in Chief of the RAF's Bomber Command. This is probably the most problematic portion of this lively, entertaining documentary. Depending on who you talk to, Harris is either reviled or revered, because he was the Britain's biggest proponent of the concept of area bombing. Area bombing used the tactic of levelling an entire city instead of, say, the precision bombing method of focusing the bombs on the rail yards or factories on the outskirts. Harris believed that by bombing everything and everybody it would break the will of the populace to support their government. The revilers tended to be born after the war, while the reverers fought in the war, though this is not universal as Harris' actions were often criticized during the war too.

To the revilers, the problem with this tactic, as articulated here, is that it killed so many innocent civilians (women and children, especially) to no conceivable effect. The McGregors, both on the side of the revilers, bring up the good and bad story of Harris in this film. They discuss how modern fighter planes, with their so-called smart guidance systems allow them to bring more precision to their bombing, “mostly eliminating” (their words, not mine) civilian causalities. This is a bit of a panacea to modern sensibilities, because we've had report after report during both the Iraq and Afghan wars of errant missiles destroying homes filled with innocent villagers. And yet, the true story of this tactic must be left to the men who actually fought. No matter how much Ewan McGregor tries to exercise his liberal credentials by condemning area bombing, the men who fought will have none of it. As McGregor tries to suggest that too many “innocents” died this way, the “bomber boys” interviewed here to a man indicate their support for the tactic. As one says, “this was total war.” What is left unspoken, but is as clear as daylight, is that they feel that the only way to defeat a monstrous ideology was to do diabolical things back at them. They lived through the Chamberlain appeasement years before the war, and the carpet bombing of London in 1940, and they understand all too well what both meant.

Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris

Those who weren't alive during World War II (people like the McGregors), with 20/20 hindsight, sit in smug self-satisfaction that this approach was morally wrong. Of course it was morally wrong, but in total war even the “good guys” had to adopt their enemies tactics or face annihilation. This was a vicious, horrible war that destroyed lives, families and (almost) entire races. Without the unremitting assault by the Allies' airplanes that went on night after night after night over Germany who knows what might have happened. It's easy to say that area bombing carried out by the crews at the behest of Bomber Command was “ineffective,” but was it? Did it not help shorten the war even a little? The adult “innocents” in these villages and cities that were levelled were partially responsible for the rise of the Nazis because of their unwillingness to stand up to them when they first came on the scene. They voted them in and then wilfully ignored the horrific things the Nazis perpetrated. So how “innocent” were they? (The children were another story entirely.)

Colin & Ewan McGregor

But fortunately this political axe is not the only thing that goes on here. The exhilaration Colin – who eventually gets to fly a Lancaster – and Ewan – who gets to ride as a “gunner” passenger – experience is palpable. The sequences of Colin and Ewan learning how the planes were built (including a lovely lesson on how to rivet by one of England's original “Rosie the Riveters”) are fascinating. But what is truly unbelievable, considering how long the missions could last (6 to 12 hours), is how tight and very cramped the seemingly large Lancasters are (Ewan demonstrates this by simply entering the plane and trying to make his way around). The men assigned to the gunnery bubbles were not only often very cold and cramped the whole time, but also the first targets for German fighter planes. Ewan takes us through the cumbersome process a tail gunner would have had to go through to prepare for evacuating an airplane that was going down. He's able to do it, but in a real crisis, it's no wonder that the tail gunners almost always bought it.

But ultimately it is the absolutely beautiful images of the Lancaster once again taking to the air (briefly piloted by Colin) that are breathtaking. This gorgeous, cumbersome-looking bird from another era soars remarkably gracefully over the peaceful English landscape as Ewan, with an ear-to-ear grin on his face, watches the world go by from the front gunnery bubble. Forgetting all the politics of what is “right” and “wrong” in wartime, it is finally recalling what so many very young and very brave men did to allow us to live in (relative) peace which must never be forgotten. And generally, Bomber Boys achieves just that.

– David Churchill is a critic and author of the novel The Empire of Death. You can read an excerpt here. Or go to www.wordplaysalon.com for more information (where you can order the book, but only in traditional form!). And yes, he’s begun the long and arduous task of writing his second novel.