In the black of night of June 8, 1944, two days after the D-Day invasions of Normandy, the dark hulk of a four-engined Lancaster bomber of 15 Squadron, Royal Air Force, trailing a blow-torching curtain of livid flame, lurches heavily into a dive over the French countryside, a few miles to the west of Paris. The flame is bright enough to illuminate the farms below in a pale and ghostly light. The big bomber is dying, her lifeblood streaming in angry, high octane sheets from her starboard wing fuel tanks.
