A Member of the RAF of Indeterminate Race
The Wartime Memoirs of a Former RAF Navigator and POW
Author
Publisher
Printing Details
First edition. Paperback. 20.5 × 14cm, xvii + 113pp + 17 pages of photographs.
CY Grant was the first black entertainer to have a regular spot on British television. Cy, originally from British Guiana, travelled to England to join the RAF in 1941 and, after undergoing flying training and qualifying as a navigator, was posted in 1943 to No.103 Squadron, based at RAF Elsham Wolds in Lincolnshire, as one of the seven-man crew of an Avro Lancaster bomber. Cy's flying days were short-lived, however—he and his Canadian/British crewmates were shot down over Holland in 1943, on only their third mission. Two were killed and the rest became prisoners of war. A member of the RAF of indeterminate race is the translation of a sardonic caption that appeared under Cy's photograph in a German newspaper shortly after his capture by the SS—evidently sneering at the deployment of coloured aircrew by the RAF.
Condition
A good reading copy but the front cover is creased and wrinkled from a bit of water damage.
ISBN
9781846830181