Explore Bomber County Books

A wartime love story set beneath the uncertain skies of RAF Bomber Command.

At RAF East Kirkby in the heart of Lincolnshire's Bomber County, Sergeant Jane Williams spends her nights in the operations room, following the progress of aircraft sent deep into enemy territory and waiting for the sound that matters most — engines returning home.

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She has become accustomed to uncertainty. To empty chairs, names on boards and the knowledge that every aircraft leaving the runway may not be there the following morning. In a world where loss has become part of everyday life, Jane has learned that sometimes the safest thing is not to hope for too much.

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Flight Lieutenant Bill Jenkins knows that same uncertainty from the other side. As a Lancaster pilot, Bill climbs into his aircraft night after night with six other men depending upon him to bring them home. There is little room for fear when there is a job to do, and even less room for imagining a future beyond the next operation. He trusts his crew, his Lancaster and the routines that carry them through the darkness.

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Then he meets Jane.

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What begins almost by accident slowly becomes something neither of them expected. Between briefings and operations, dances and stolen moments, aircraft departing and crews returning, Jane and Bill find themselves drawn together in a world where tomorrow can never be taken for granted.

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But falling in love on a bomber station comes with its own kind of courage.

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Just Jane looks beyond the Lancaster as an icon to the human lives surrounding it: the young men who flew, the women who waited, the ground crews who kept the aircraft serviceable and the friendships that made an extraordinary existence feel, for fleeting moments, almost ordinary.

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It is a story about love under fire, friendship, fear and sacrifice — but above all, about having the courage to care deeply for someone when neither of you can know how much time you will be given. 

A story that gives back