Donald W. Feesey

Donald W. Feesey was a British RAF veteran, author and historian whose writing grew directly from his experience of the Second World War. At eighteen he volunteered for pilot training and was close to qualifying as a fighter pilot when an eye problem led to his reassignment as a navigator. He subsequently served with RAF Bomber Command and completed thirty-four operational sorties, most of them night missions during 1944 and 1945 at the height of the Allied bombing campaign against Germany. His wartime service included a dramatic incident in which his Lancaster lost power and most of the crew bailed out; Feesey remained with the pilot after one engine was restarted, and the badly damaged aircraft eventually reached Manston after struggling back across the Channel.

Feesey’s principal published work is The Fly By Nights: RAF Bomber Command Sorties 1944–45, first published by Pen & Sword Aviation in 2007. It is a wartime memoir rather than a historical novel, recounting his experiences navigating Lancaster bombers on operations over occupied Europe and Germany. The book describes the realities of night flying, navigation, mechanical failure, enemy defences and the relationships between members of a bomber crew, giving a first-hand account of RAF Bomber Command during the final stages of the war. Because Feesey was describing events in which he personally participated, the book is particularly useful as a primary-source memoir of the RAF bombing offensive rather than as historical fiction.