Enemy Coast Ahead - Uncensored Book

This book badly needs an annotated edition. It was a good thing when Crecy released this complete edition - as originally published censors cut out material that was still thought militarily sensitive and some of Gibson's opinions. But it still suffers badly from having too many hands in it and never having been gone over and edited by the author, who was killed in action shortly after writing the manuscript.

Gibson had an interesting RAF career, with a first tour of operations in Hampdens, a night fighter tour that he seems to have regarded as a great rest cure, then a tour as commander of 106 Squadron. Immediately upon leaving command of 106, he was tagged to command what would become 617 Squadron and train and prepare them for Operation Chastise, the Dams raid. Gibson was often a singularly unattractive character - some people, largely ex-public schoolboys like himself - loved him, but many despised him, and the reasons often seep through here. Just his description of his Dams raid crew is damning; he gets his front gunner's name wrong and suggests he's inexperienced and a bad gunner when in fact the man had done a full tour of operations and was quite a good gunner. His contempt for his NCO flight engineer - Gibson did not like NCOs - is brutal. His navigator - one of the best on the squadron - is called out, like his bomb aimer, mostly for having a colorful accent.

The book is very uneven, and the reader unfamiliar with the Dams raid will likely fall into erroneous beliefs about the operation if he or she takes this as gospel. Reading it closely, I was startled by the juxtaposition of bits that are obviously true and well-described, immediately followed by paragraphs of total bushwah. Likely had Gibson lived he would have fixed some of this.

Overall this is vital reading for anyone interested in the topic. But it needs to be read carefully and preferably with prior knowledge of the subject. And really what Enemy Coast Ahead needs most, as I said above, is an annotated edition.