By the last year of the Second World War, the RAF's Bomber Command had become a devastating military force. The peak of its operations came in March 1945 when the squadrons that fell under its command dropped the greatest weight of bombs for any month in the war. In the total of 364,514 operational sorties flown since September 1939, the men and machines of Bomber Command dropped a staggering 1,030,500 tons of bombs on targets in Germany and Occupied Europe. However, the success achieved by Bomber Command came a cost, with 8,325 aircraft lost in action and 55,573 airmen were killed. So vast was Bomber Command, that to tell its full story in any detail would be a huge task. In Lancasters at War, Ian Reid has set out to explore its successes and failures through the men and machines that operated from one airfield, namely RAF Grimsby, and one unit, 100 Squadron. Located in what is today referred to as Bomber Country', RAF Grimsby was developed from the site of a pre-war civilian flying