HEROIC ENDEAVOUR
The Remarkable Story of One Pathfinder Force Attack, a Victoria Cross and 206 Brave Men
Sean Feast
Publication: Available now!
Price: £18.00 hardback
Size: 234 x 156mm
Pages: 192 plus 16pp b/w photos
ISBN 1 904943 51 9
‘An outstanding exposition…truly compelling’
Group Captain Stafford Coulson, DSO, DFC
‘There will be no living VCs in Pathfinder Force’.
So wrote AVM Don Bennett, AOC 8 Group PFF, underlying the tremendously dangerous job the force did in leading the way for Bomber Command squadrons to take the war into the heart of the enemy.
It is 23rd December 1944 and a heroic yet dreadful action is about to take place over Cologne, involving the bravest of the brave – The Pathfinder Force.
In the log book of one of that force, Flight Sergeant George Owen, are the details of his 29 operations. The final entry for this date, above a heavily inked stamp proclaiming ‘Death Presumed’ is the simple word ‘missing’. The raid, one of the most important of that time, has scarcely been mentioned in history books, and yet it was an operation in which its leader, Squadron Leader Robert Palmer, DFC, won the Victoria Cross, and a future VC fought a similarly heroic battle. But it was also an ordeal in which ordinary men fought and died – ordinary men doing extraordinary things. This story is for them.
Journalist Sean Feast has written Heroic Endeavour in two parts, the first the gripping narrative, the second the retrospective reactions of the survivors, in equal parts moving and informative. This last element is unique and gives the all-important ‘forgotton voice’ aspect to the work.