NO MOON TONIGHT

After joining the Australian Air Force in 1940, Don Charlwood was sent to Lincolnshire to fly Lancasters with the British Bomber Command. His memoir takes an intimate look at the nightly crisis of flying into the Ruhr, dropping bombs on tiny targets, and returning without getting killed or captured. Although the story deals with the same material night after night, every mission is harrowing in its unique way. Peter Wickham has a deep, resonate voice that is gentle and confiding when reading the love scenes between Charlwood and Joan Sutherland, a WAC in the Royal Armed Services; gritty and determined during the night missions to Essen, Dusseldorf, and Berlin; anguished during dogfights, when British bombers are shot down; and matey when the planes have safely landed once again at Elsham Wolds. M.D.H. © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine [Published: OCT/ NOV 03]