"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
...

Who knows, maybe he was a Canadian ?

Sorry, Keith, this seems unlikely from a Canadian perspectivefor two
reasons: U.S. use of the term "bombardier" was not widely known in Canada
until films and radio plays started to be made about the U.S. air
campaign in Europe, and the Canadian desire to guard its cultural
distinctions even then -- the RCAF would have taken on RAF terminology as
part of doctrine, and use of correct terminology would have been insisted
upon in training after which it sticks.

The term bomb aimer and air bomber were both current in the RAF
but I believe bombardier was used by the RCAF and Americanisms
abounded in slang usage even in 1943.

One of the best Canadian memoires of bombing ops over Europe is Murray
Peden's _A Thousand Shall Fall_. He consistently uses "bomb aimer" in the
book; I could not find "bombardier" as I rescanned it last night. Mind
you, he's only one. However, I know some former 6 Group and other aircrew
from my membership in the Legion and from elsewhere; they get *very*
shirty if you use "bombardier" rather than "bomb aimer". "Bombardier" was
already in use in the RCA as a rank (and likely had been in use in
similar contexts since the formation of the Loyal Company of Artillery at
Saint John in 1783 or so) .

Personally I'm inclined to the view that it was not uttered
by the skipper at all but by an actor or continuity man in
BBC Broadcasting house when they were cleaning up the
tape.

I subscribe to the re-enactment hypothesis too, that way the BBC man and
the aircrew would have been able to say he was really there to record the
sortie and that they had really said those things. The only anomalous
thing seems to be the use of "bombardier".
--
Andrew Chaplin
SIT MIHI GLADIUS SICUT SANCTO MARTINO
(If you're going to e-mail me, you'll have to get "yourfinger." out.)