Authors
Jeannie Benjamin is the daughter of Wing Commander Eric Benjamin who is the subject of the book 'Main Force to Mosquito Master Bomber', which she co-wrote with Sean Feast.
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Dr Steve Bond served in the RAF and now lectures at City University. His books include histories of RAF Brize Norton, RAF St Athan and the Gloster Meteor, along with the books 'Heroes All', 'Wimpy', and contributions to Fighting High 'Failed to Return' books.
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 Born in Lincolnshire Roger Cole was educated at Brigg Grammar School, Kings College Cambridge, Bretton Hall in Yorkshire, Birmingham and Nottingham Universities. He is a writer and lecturer and has published other biographies entitled 'Burning to Speak', and 'Gaudier Brzeska, Artist and Myth'. His acclaimed book 'Creative Imperative' is regarded as a seminal work. Roger lived in Lincolnshire in the village of Wellingore where ‘High Flight’ pilot and poet John Magee was billeted with the Royal Canadian Air Force for the last months of his life. |
 A career journalist, Michael Cumming retired having worked on weekly, evening and daily newspapers and in public relations, latterly editing house journals for international companies. In the RAF from 1945 to 1948, he was with No. 305 Squadron in Germany, at No. 1 Group HQ and with the Air Ministry Servicing Development Unit. He was the first journalist to fly with the RAF aerobatic team, the Black Arrows, in a two-seat Meteor leading the display. |
 Graham Cross earned his doctorate in History from the University of Cambridge, and specialises in twentieth century American military, diplomatic and political history. He is a respected expert on the history of the 8th Air Force and is the historian and UK contact for the 353rd Fighter Group. |
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  Steve Darlow is a Bomber Command historian, established military aviation author (with twenty-three books to his name), and television documentary consultant and contributor. In 2009 Steve founded Fighting High Publishing, which seeks to publish books focusing on human endeavour in military situations. |
 Francis (Frank) Humphrey Dell served in the RAF between 1941 and 1946, and then flew for BEA in Cyprus before returning to the UK in 1954, where he flew Viscounts, Vanguards and Tridents, retiring in 1976 as British Airway's Chief Pilot (Technical). After retirement Frank served as a member of the Board of the Civil Aviation Authority, and held the post of Master of the Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators in London. |
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 Sean Feast works in PR and advertising and is an acclaimed Bomber Command historian and author. Sean has authored and co-authored thirteen books to date including the recently published Missing Presumed Murdered and Main Force to Mosquito Master Bomber. |
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Marc Hall developed an interest in aviation at an early age, and gained a commercial pilots licence. Marc's research in to RAF Bomber Command is ongoing and his first book Bomber Command Operation Hurricane met with critical acclaim. |
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Janet Hughes, Reginald Wilson's elder daughter, was born in Chigwell, Essex, in 1958, and was educated at Woodford County High School and the Universities of Southampton and Reading. She became a secondary school teacher of French and German, and now enjoys one-to-one teaching, translation, photography, music and writing. She is married to David Hughes, and they have two grown up children, Katherine and Christopher. They live in Farnham, Surrey. |
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Nigel Julian, as the son of a Royal Air Force pilot and Caterpillar Club member, grew up surrounded by aviation themed books, resulting in a lifelong passion for the history of the air war over Europe. Encouragement from 56th Fighter Group veterans and their families eventually resulted in the formation of the 56thfightergroup.co.uk website. Besides becoming a focus point for the Group's former members and their relatives, it has also provided the current 56th Fighter Wing with an insight into their unit's extraordinary and historic legacy |
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Mike McLeod is the co-author of 'Lost Graves of Peenemünde' with Sean Feast. Following a chance remark by Mike McLeod’s wife regarding her uncle Derrick, who was killed on the Peenemünde raid, Mike began to research the circumstances of the loss, realising there was an important story to be told.
Sadly Mike recently passed away.
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Born in Daybrook, Nottingham, in 1955, Roger Leivers eventually moved to the Cambridgeshire town of Godmanchester in 1989. Here he became involved in volunteer groups, and launched annual local historical war walks to raise money for the local museum and the upkeep of the town s war memorial. This led him to be involved with The Porch Museum, with a special interest in the effect both wars had on the town and its people.
 In 1940 Gordon Mellor was called up and joined the RAF, training as a navigator. Gordon’s war years, serving with Bomber Command, were particularly dramatic and he left the service in 1946 as Flight Lieutenant. Membership of a number of associations enabled Gordon to keep up with old friends, especially those associated with the Comète escape line. Gordon was also a Trustee of the Executive Committee of the Bomber Command Association during planning and construction of the Bomber Command Memorial in London’s The Green Park. |
 Keith C. Ogilvie is the author of 'You Never Know Your Luck. He describes himself as the ‘lucky’ son of Skeets and Irene Ogilvie. As he grew up he gradually came to understand just how remarkable the lives of his parents had been. Working from a trove of personal correspondence, diaries, scrapbooks and media, together with memoirs of others and research covering the events of the time, he has chronicled the highlights of these two memorable lives.
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Dr Robert Owen is an aviation historian and the Official Historian, and a Trustee, of the No. 617 Squadron Association. Dr Owen has contributed to numerous publications and television documentaries, including authorship of the book 'Henry Maudslay Dam Buster'. |
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Peter Randall is the owner and founder of the website littlefriends.co.uk, one of the earliest sites on the Internet dedicated to the US 8th Army Air Force Fighter Command, and recognised as the most comprehensive on-line database for this specialised subject. Peter, motivated by the lack of detailed information contained in the early published 8th Air Force fighter unit histories, began collecting records of serial numbers, unit and pilot allocations and their respective fates, culminating in the online publication of his unique and exemplary website. |
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Howard Sandall is the No. 622 Squadron historian, the author of the squadron's history We Wage War By Night and contributor to D-Day Bomber Command Failed to Return. His research into his uncle's time with Bomber Command has led to him expanding his interest to other squadrons with the aim of perpetuating memories for future generations. |
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Reginald Wilson was born in 1923, the third of five children. He attended Beal Grammar School, Ilford, and joined the Royal Air Force in 1941, serving in Bomber Command as a navigator. Shot down in 1944 over Berlin, he spent the rest of the war as a POW. Reg had a long and successful career with Unilever, eventually becoming an International Management Consultant. He married Barbara Spencer in 1954. Sadly Reg passed away in 2016 |
 Bomber Command navigator Calton Younger, author of 'No Flight From the Cage' served with No. 460 (RAAF) Squadron during the Second World War and was shot down on 1942, seeing out the rest of the conflict as a prisoner-of-war. |
Frances Zagni is the daughter of John and Ursula Valentine. Following an Arts Degree at Southampton University she took a Performer's Diploma on the violoncello. A career as a cello teacher, combined with bringing up a family of four children followed, both in UK and abroad, as her husband was an Irrigation Engineer. On returning to the UK she took an MA in Arts Administration at City University in 1987 and later a Teacher's diploma on the Double Bass. Living in Stanton Prior, near Bath, and in addition to transcribing all her parent's wartime letters, Frances now divides her time between gardening and the viola da gamba.
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Andrew White was born in Brackley, Northamptonshire. He joined the RAF in 1985 and served for 26 years in the Intelligence Branch retiring as a Wing Commander. Andrew served operationally in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Iraq with both fast jet and transport squadrons; he also enjoyed tours in the Ministry of Defence and operational headquarters at home and abroad. Now a battlefield guide, Andrew takes GCSE students to the sites of the Western Front and Normandy, and A Level students to Berlin. He lives with his family on the Norfolk/Cambridgeshire border. 