Dispatch from Berlin, 1943 The story of five journalists who risked everything

‘This is a helluva way to get a story.’ In December 1943, five correspondents join the British bombers air raid on Berlin. The brave group included Australians, Americans and a Norwegian journalist, who are each assigned to one of the 400 Lancaster bombers that flew into the hazardous skies over Germany. Of the five, only two land back at base to file their stories. For those on the ground in Germany the story was far from over. Amongst them, having parachuted out of his doomed aircraft, reporter Lowell Bennett is taken prisoner alongside other surviving shot-down airmen. Yet when he manages to convince his captors he isn’t a soldier, it heralds the beginning of a remarkable tour of bombed-out German cities to see first-hand the devastation of war for the everyday Germans. In Dispatch from Berlin, 1943, Australian historian Anthony Cooper and German researcher Thorsten Perl uncover this remarkable true story of life during war.

Anthony Cooper is a retired schoolteacher with a PhD in German civil aviation in the Weimar Republic, and is the author of HMAS Bataan 1952 (NewSouth, 2010); Darwin Spitfires (NewSouth, 2011 and 2022) and Kokoda Air Strikes (NewSouth, 2014). Thorsten Perl was and is a investigator of historical and scientific topics. For 27 years he has been involved with official agencies in the search for and clarification of missing crew members of the Second World War. Thorsten works in research and development of regenerative agriculture and lives with his family in Eberswalde near Berlin in Germany.

Chapter 1 – A Big Opportunity Chapter 2 – The Lucky Five Chapter 3 – Forerunners Chapter 4 – Bomber Boys Chapter 5 – A Gathering Storm Chapter 6 – The Raid Chapter 7 – ‘ Orchestrated Hell’ Chapter 8 – Survivors Chapter 9 – The Dead Chapter 10 – Reporting the Raid Chapter 11 ? POWs Chapter 12 – A Grand Tour Chapter 13 – Personal Impacts Chapter 14 – Aftermaths Author’ s Note References Select Bibliography Index