Unable to fulfil the demands of Stalin of opening a second front against Germany in 1943 by invading France, it fell to the new Commander of the RAF’s Bomber Command, Arthur “Bomber” Harris to undertake a massive bombing campaign against Germany in tandem with the US Air Force.

Thinking that it could be a viable way of winning the war, the Americans bombed by day and the RAF by night.  It proved to be massively expensive; of the 125,000 British aircrew who took part on the campaign, 75,446 (60 percent) were killed, wounded or taken prisoner.