MR.X XXXXXXXX             A FAMILY MEMBER GAVE ME THIS E MAIL ADDRESS FOR YOU, AND I AM SENDING THIS
                                    TO SEE IF IT DOES REACH YOU.
                                                                                                  MURRAY PEDEN

MR. X,
                               RE THE SIGNATURE: YOU ARE ENTIRELY WELCOME.  I WAS ENDEAVOURING TO FIND OUT IF WE
COULD CONTACT BY E MAIL IF THE OCCASION AROSE.  IT SEEMS AS THOUGH WE CAN,  AND THAT MIGHT POSSIBLY PROVE BENEFICIAL IF ANY QUERIES SHOULD ARISE.
                               ALL THE VERY BEST,
                                                                            MURRAY PEDEN

Dear Wxxxxx,
                           It has been about 20 or 30 years since I was “back home.”   On that last occasion I was invited out as a
guest to a fancy function at Bomber Command Headquarters --  which marked a most substantial ascent for me !

                                                                                            Murray Peden

Dear W,
                              To answer your question:  yes,  I am in touch with a gentleman now living on the outskirts of Norwich who has kept close tabs on the old timers of 214 Squadron, and has relayed information relative to their get-togethers etc. as they have occurred.  Old Father Time has been removing them fairly steadily over the years, and there is only
one that I could probably raise by e mail now --  George Mackie, who is mentioned fairly prominently in one section of ATSF.   As I recall,  the “old timers’” association was dissolved just a few months ago because there were so few left.
They used to have an annual dinner at a hotel in Norwich, and a couple of the boys used to report to me on old friends who had turned out etc.   A former policeman moved to the area near Blickling Hall a few years ago, and he used to
write to me a dozen times a year keeping me up to date on visits made to Blickling.  He took an unpaid job there as a
guide, showing the various groups around.  Unfortunately, he was hit with Alzheimers disease a year or so ago, and
although his wife, Pat,  tries to keep us connected, it is a no-win game, as I am sure you will understand.  I sent an e mail to them a couple of months ago;  but I fear it one of the last.
                                 All the best,
                                                                 Murray

Dear W,
                             Your reference to Norwich reminded me that often, as we took off at dusk and swung ‘round to head off toward some turning-point in the North Sea, the most prominent thing I would see in our vicinity – about ten miles away – was the lovely,  tall spire of Norwich Cathedral.   It always registered with me.
                              Re George Mackie:   I haven’t heard from George for a long time now, and haven’t written an e mail myself,  because I knew he would be having his hands full once his wife got Alzheimer’s,  and about the last thing I wanted to do was ask him how things were going – it was plain that they would be going badly.
                               Re the book:  I get little mail on it now;  but for several years after it first came out I got scores of letters, many of them with much the same message, which usually ran something like this:
                               “You didn’t know it; but I was probably within a thousand yards of you over ________  that night
of ________”
                                 Oddly enough, I still have one correspondent who is writing me fairly frequently about the book,
which, incidentally, he is now reading for the second time.   This correspondent is our grandson  Andrew, now busily working in a large firm in New York !

                              All the best,
                                                                Murray.

W,
                      Apropos contacting German pilots:  We had General Galland here as our guest at a couple of our big
Aircrew Reunions in Winnipeg.  I spoke to him once about trying to track down the German night fighter who came so close to finishing off F Fox as we were nearing Gelsenkirchen that June night.  I was sure that the second fighter would claim our F Fox as a victory, and quizzed Galland about the chances of tracking him down.  I can’t remember Galland’s exact response, but he made it clear that the chances were just about zilch, and that I would in all probability simply waste a lot of valuable time.  I seem to recall that the main reason he gave was that their records were in a shambles, with various victors having seized varying batches of records all over the shop so to speak.  
Anyway,  the end result was that I didn’t even bother trying.   Galland was being cooperative, and I figured that if he,
as the head of all their fighter pilots, considered it a lost cause,  it was probably hopeless.
                                                                                      Murray

I have given up, at this stage, trying to track down the German fighters who worked us over the night of the Gelsenkirchen raid.  I think the odds against finding either one of them alive at this point are monumental, and
I find each day that I have about five more things to do than I can reasonably expect to find time for !
I read the article about the Stirling;  but I doubt that there will ever be anything finished that would be worth while
visiting for a look.
                   All the best,
                                                 Murray

W,
     I thankfully attest that the Lord has been good to us – we are still here and reasonably healthy !
      I  attest that it would be great to see a Stirling reborn;  the old aerial warrior deserves that recognition.
       Apropos the Fortress:  I haven’t flown in a  B 17 since 1945 – but I did get a good walk round one, from cockpit to rear turret, many years ago, when one flew in as
         part of an air show.  I walked back through the wireless op’s position to the waist gun positions,  inhaling deeply the old atmosphere all the way.  It was emotion--
stirring and uplifting  !
         All the best,
                                         Murray

W,
                       You will have to remind me, when you get a chance to respond,  precisely where you are,  and what functions you are engaged in   currently.   I try to keep abreast,  but I
must confess that the volume of correspondence ( and perhaps one or two other factors having some tangential connection with longevity)  leave me a trifle “fuzzy” at times as to
all attributes of my current correspondent.
                       Apropos the Liberator,  I have flown in one,  up in the cockpit but not at the controls.   I would rate the Fortress as considerably better than the Liberator in only one
respect,  albeit an important one.   A pilot could fly a much more vigorous “corkscrew”  in a Fort.   The empennage of the B 24 would not have stood up to the violent gyrations one
could safely put the Fortress through.   But in every other respect – that is apart from ruggedness a nd aerobatic performance – I think the Liberator was distinctly superior to the
Fortress.   But if you asked me which aircraft I would rather fly – and I mean on RAF Bomber Command type operations --  I would unhesitatingly choose the Fortress.  I don’t think there
was a more structurally “solid and secure”  aircraft built.   I refer to the experiences I personally had in the Fort, and would not exchange it for any other aircraft I ever flew.   The
Stirling was structurally as indestructible,  but in all other respects, such as altitude performance, it was not in the same league, except for maneuverability .
I say with no reservations:   I loved ‘em  both !
                                                                                           All the best,                   Murray.

W,
                        Thank you for a most interesting background briefing.  It was kind of you to take the time.
                         Regarding the B 17 Fortress --  I never knew any pilot who didn’t love it.  As you know, it was a docile aircraft, with no nasty habits near the stall or anything like that,  and it
was very easy to fly and a great altitude grabber.  If one had started his operational life, as I did, flying Stirlings,  the latter factor alone would have made one a B17 convert.   Flak at
13000 or 14000 is a whole lot scarier than the same sort of spread at 20000 or better.
                         As for the RAF not utilizing more American aircraft,  I was under the impression that they latched onto as many as they could.  Some bomber squadrons, I expect, would
have preferred to stay with the Lancaster, if that is what they were using;  as a load-carrier she was hard to beat.  As you know, the Lanc could haul a load of 8000 pounds to Berlin;
whereas the Fort took only half of that.  And on shorter hauls, say to the Ruhr,  the Lanc regularly carried 11000 pounds,  again a more generous load than the Fort could transport.
Before you get the wrong idea, let me repeat that I loved the old Fortress, and would not have wanted to switch at any time.  For my money, Boeing built the best !
                        My Flight Commander, when I switched to instructing,  had flown a tour on Liberators out in the Middle East,  and favoured them a lot.  But I am sure that he would have
chosen a Fort for a night operation if he’d been selected, and had the choice.  When it came to violent evasive action – our life=saving corkscrew for instance --  nothing could beat the
old Fortress in my opinion.  As I said,  I loved them, and I never encountered another RAF type who didn’t.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Murray

W,
                  I can readily appreciate that most of the details of the “radar war”,  as we often referred to it,  have necessarily to be kept well an d truly under wraps, so have no hesitation
whatever in steering clear of any improper disclosures in our exchanges.   We were highly circumspect ourselves, needless to say,  when we were involved in the work.   We had an
excellent incentive, of course,  in that the more the enemy knew of our equipment and practices,  the more effective would be his countermeasures, and the greater the likelihood that
we would not make it back to base on a given operation.
                  You are quite right in saying that our primary defence against night fighters, by long odds, was our evasive maneuver, the corkscrew.   On the Fortresses, of course, we had
much better defensive armament than we’d had on the Stirling.   The point fives were much more impressive and effective than the puny  firepower of a .303  turret.  But neither were
a match for the firepower of a fighter is he got into good firing position.   If a competent fighter pilot got a good pass at you,  the odds were that it was game over.   We were highly
fortunate, to say the least,  to be able to stay in the air,  even with battle damage and two men wounded,   in our encounters on the Gelsenkirchen trip,  which by coincidence was
73 years ago, to the minute almost,  as I now write about it so casually !
                    As to the secrecy,  it was rigorously maintained, as I say.  Many of our German-speaking Special W/ops were Jewish,  and although their racial and religious backgrounds were
“muffled” as much as possible, I always felt that if captured, in due course they would be singled out for special attention and treatment.  I admired them the more for that fact, for it was
clearly known to them.
                     Harking back to the vigor of the corkscrew,  I can assure you that on the two aircraft with which I operated, the Stirling and the Fortress,  the aircraft would take all the
pilot could give it,  at least I was always so convinced.  Our view was that the only real limitation on the violence or energy of the corkscrew was the physical strength of the pilot.
As to the duration of the corkscrew,  at maximum strength, we used to find, in daylight practices with Mosquitos or other fighters, about five minutes of intensive pursuit and
“attack” and the pilots’ tongues were hanging out.  At night, the limitations of visibility imposed, usually,  a bit of a limit,  that is, if the fighter was unsuccessful in his first pass.  Bear in
mind, however, that in such a pass the fighter had available far more firepower than his prey.  Despite the visibility problem at night, you will note that the German fighter made
two extremely effective passes at us up in the Kattegat, and came all too close to scoring his kill as far as I was concerned.   The popular theory at that time was that a man could
stand about 9 g  at the maximum.   I think I may have exceeded that limit a couple of times;  I was highly motivated.
           You focus on the LIBERATOR in your qu estion,  and I would readily concede that a pilot would be far more limited in the vigor of his evasive action if flying a Lib.  Fortunately for me, I was called upon to exert maximum effort only when flying Stirlings or Fortresses, and our boast was that the pilot would break up before those aeroplanes would.   As for the physical limitations imposed on the pilot, I did make reference in the book to the ‘TEST’  imposed upon Squadron Leader Jefferies one night by a phony radar contact.   At the end of the tale,
we found it amusing;  during the affair Bill Jefferies found it not in the least humorous.
            I think I have strained your patience long enough for this session, although I assure you I am a long-level talker by temperament  -- no doubt the after=effects of having
been a Crown Attorney in court too long !    All the best,
                                                                                                               Murray

W:  I HAVE BEEN HIT WITH SOME SORT OF  ARTHRITIC BUG,  A BAD ONE.   MAKES IT VERY DIFFICULT TO REPLY.   SO IT WILL BE MUCH EASIER ON MY CONSCIENCE  IF YOU WAIT FOR
ME TO  INITIATE E MAIL CORRESPONDENCE.  I AM NOT INVENTING THIS, BELIEVE ME.   I ENJOY OUR CORRESPONDENCE,  BUT  MAN PROPOSES AND GOD DISPOSES, AS THE OLD SAYING GOES.  ON THE OTHER HAND, LET’S BE OPTIMISTIC:   TRY ME AGAIN IN 2 MONTHS, AND LET’S HOPE THE GOOD LORD HAS INTERVENED AGAIN.       MURRAY