— go back to the guide
At the beginning of the war, Peter Macdermott told me, they would go out to bomb a military or industrial target in Germany. If they failed to find or identify it, they would fly back to England with the bombs. Later on, the practice was to drop unused bombs on any likely-looking target on the way back. It could inflict damage on the enemy, and reduced the considerable risks to aircrews of returning with their bombs. But doing that could sometimes inflict civilian casualties on a non-military target. As things went on both sides deliberately bombed civilian targets. There had already been the destruction of Coventry by the Germans, and much later the catastrophic blanket-bombing of Dresden by the Allies.
These were, it seemed, uneasy memories for Peter. The Wing-Commander seemed to me (as a very young man) to be haunted by them, despite his genial, generous and humane temperament. He had a slight tic.