Fire was Bright, The

GENERAL MILITARY R.A.F. World War II

R.A.F. stories

 “The Fire Was Bright (Macmillan Co.) should go down as among the best of the war.

The author, at 32, is a veteran of Fleet Street, the Ministry of Information and Bomber Command, a graduate of both Oxford and the Bar of the Inner Temple. Don Carlson’s review follows: To a reviewer, a book like this, unheralded and not hailed as a classic, comes as a breath of fresh air in the often stale draught of war yarns hitting the market The skill of Kark’s literary artistry, and it is no cliche to call it that, will make you laugh at the young RAF bomber men and their glorious disregard for tradition; and will knot your throat with its touches of tender tragedy. A local touch is the story of the Englishman, Theodore James Rowlinson, who worked on a farm near Sumas Prairie, and went to Chilliwack where he met his first girl. Later, he returned to England before the war and joined the RAF, and became a tradition in Bomber Kark’s prose is rich and mature, written with just that correct amount of restraint so that you won’t think he is “shooting a line” which is what his airmen fear most. Here are the stories of the pilot who argued about dying, which just wasn’t done, of Kostek the Pole, who played the guitar before mine-laying, of the bomber which came back without its crew.

A volume that can’t be recommended too highly, it is as bright as the lights its heroes helped turn on over Europe.”

pp. ix, 143 First Edition #051223 (Price clipped jacket)