What a Bloody Arrival
A Wartime Story of Survival

By Martin Smith
1997
ISBN: 1-85776-174-X
175 p. illus.
$48.95 Cloth

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Flying on reconnaissance, escorts, shipping strikes and long-range interception operations in Blunheims and then the Beaufighters over the Channel and the North Sea, Martin Smith shot down three enemy aircraft during World War Two. Then, he and his navigator were forced to ditch in the North Sea, and together they spent three days adrift in an open dinghy before being washed up on a Norwegian island. Looked after by Norwegians before being captured by the Germans. Martin Smith spent the rest of the war in Stalag Luft III, the prisoner of war camp of "Wooden Horse" fame. Written in a candid, down-to-earth style, What a Bloody Arrival is the fascinating account of the author's wartime experiences first as an RAF pilot and then as a prisoner of war. It is a poignant story of survival, faithfully recreating the humor and tragedies, the boredom and intense fear, the boisterous fun and deep despair of one man's war.

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