When in 1934, Viscount Rothermere discovered that the Germans were steadily building modern passenger aircraft that could easily be converted into bombers he commissioned the Bristol Aeroplane Company to build him a passenger aircraft that would be "the best in the world".
A year later it was delivered, and immediately donated to a delighted RAF. It was the prototype for the Blenheim bomber. faster than most fighters then in the service, and was for solo raids in daylight over the Channel. Richard Passmore was a crew member whose duty it was to fend off any attacking fighters from his turet in the top of the fuselage.
He did this in the knowledge that the range of his gun was inadequate for the task; and that it was he who was most likely to be killed. So the pilots inevitably tried to stay out of sight in the cloud. But invariably the cloud rolled back a few miles north of the french coast, leaving a beautiful dangerous blue sky...
.jpg)
