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For Luck and Safe Return: Lucky Charms, Mascots and Superstitions of the RAF, Royal Navy and British Army, 1939-45
Paperback
Mythology & FolkloreAir CombatBritish History
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Publisher: Independently Published
Pages: 198
Weight: 0.60
Height: 0.42 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Why did men operating some of the most advanced military technology in the world still carry lucky charms, trust mascots and repeat superstitious rituals before going into danger?
For Luck and Safe Return uncovers the remarkable beliefs that travelled with British servicemen through the Second World War - from RAF Bomber Command and the Royal Navy to infantry fighting across north-west Europe.
Drawing on surviving museum objects, flying log books, operational records, wartime newspapers, oral histories and personal testimony, Edward Devenish follows the real stories behind a wedding-cake charm carried in a bomber, Percy the parachuting penguin, the gremlins blamed for aircraft failures, the legendary Lancaster S for Sugar, a sailor's protective caul, a submarine mascot, a lucky black cat and a rabbit's foot carried through escape from captivity.
These were not relics of a world untouched by modern warfare. They existed alongside radar, navigation systems, torpedo directors, artillery and highly trained crews because technology could reduce danger without ever removing chance.
Documented rather than sensationalised, this is a social history of wartime luck - and of what ordinary objects could mean when safe return was never guaranteed.
For readers of RAF and Bomber Command history, Royal Navy history, British military history, wartime social history and the stranger documented stories of Britain at war.
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