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Wavetops At My Wingtips:- Flying with RAF Bomber and Coastal Commands in World War 2

By Flt Lt Les Baveystock, DSO, DFC, DFM

ISBN: 9781840373103
PUBLISHED: 2001
PAGES: 288
BINDING: Hardback
SIZE: 234x156 mm
INSIDE: b/w photographs

Leslie 'Bav' Baveystock sank two U Boats in the summer of 1944 when flying a Short Sunderland flying boat in Coastal Command.

Earlier in the war he flew as second pilot aboard an elderly Bomber Command Avro Manchester on the first 1,000 bomber raid. When returning from Cologne his aircraft was hit and seriously damaged by flak. With only one engine powering the bomber it was steadily losing height and the pilot ordered the crew to jump. The crew, except for the pilot, landed safely and eventually escaped occupied territory via the renowned Comet Line escape route.

Baveystock was transferred to No 201 Squadron, Coastal Command, where he flew Sunderlands on long-range Atlantic patrols. His first success was locating and attacking the German armed blockade-runner Alsterufer. In June 1944, when flying a patrol to protect the D-Day landings, U-995 was sighted in the Western Approaches. Baveystock immediately attacked, dropping flares to illuminate the submarine and dropped depth charges from a mere seventy feet, despatching the U Boat to the bottom. On 18 August of that same year he sank U-107.

. . . an excellent and hard-to-put-down read WESTERN TELEGRAPH

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