Pen & Sword is releasing a brand new book: ‘Beaufighter & Mosquito Operations during WWII, Memoirs of a Radar Operator’ by Col Zbysek Necas Pemberton.
Zbysek Necas was just 18, and still a high school student, when he escaped from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia a month before the outbreak of war in 1939. He made his way to Britain, where he was related. His early duties included interrogating captured German aircraft crew. But he was determined to be a pilot. This wish was not to be a pilot but rather a radar operator. He describes in this touching memoir what it was to be a member of RAF Night Fighter crews during the Second World War. This book covers everything from the organization of the squadron, operations and the night fighters’ directing in the bomber-stream, as well as the problems with maintaining contact and the length of the patrols, interception tactics and much more. Having trained on the Blenheim Mk.IV, Necas’ operational patrols began on Bristol Beaufighters, the squadron subsequently converting to de Havilland Mosquitoes.
There are of course, the graphic accounts of victory in the air. The Heinkel He-177 Grief was shot down over the North Sea. Another Dornier Do-217 was destroyed after a successful intercept. 68 Squadron and Necas were also involved in night-time operations against the V1 weaponry of Hitler. Necas’ crew ended the war with three confirmed kills, one probable, and two damaged.
After the war, Necas returned to his homeland where he received the tragic news that that none of his immediate family had survived the German occupation. This is Zbysek Necas’ story of his part in the defence of Britain’s skies and the final victory against the Third Reich.
Beaufighter and Mosquito Operations in WWII’, the Memoirs of a Radar Operator
Author:
Col Zbysek Necas-Pemberton
Imprint: Air World
Pages: 296
Illustrations: 100 black and white integrated illustrations
ISBN: 9781526789570Published:
27-02-2024
Available as a hard back or ePub, check out the online shop.
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