Anyone of a certain generation will know about the Thunderbirds puppet series and probably, like me, have fond memories of being enthralled by the next exciting instalment of International Rescue on the TV on a Saturday morning. That interest has been rekindled more recently, with a 50^th anniversary homage to the Tracy boys, and bringing their awe-inspiring aircraft and Tracy Island to a new audience, with a new style.

How many of us, however, ever stopped to give thought to the genius behind Thunderbirds, Gerry Anderson, or his own inspiration behind such creative magnificence? I certainly didn’t, nor did I know anything about Gerry’s older brother, Lionel. Indeed it was only recently that Lionel’s letters, written during the second world war to his parents and his younger brother, finally came to light, to reveal a number of astonishing secrets, not only about Lionel’s wartime service, but also how the legend of Thunderbirds was born.

Lionel had always wanted to be a pilot, and the war enabled him to fulfil his dream. He was sent to America to train, away from the danger of the war torn skies of Britain, and wrote excitedly of his adventures over the Arizona desert, and the thrill of flying. He wrote too of his liaisons with Hollywood stars, of dancing with Joan Fontaine and Olivia De Havilland, and in taking part in a Hollywood film, The Thunder Birds.

On his return to the UK, after almost a year away, he was posted to a most secret squadron that used secret code words such as ‘Moonshine’ and ‘Mandrel’ – spoofs and decoys to deceive the enemy watchers, or create screens through which entire formations of bombers could pass and not be seen. These flights, in the dead of night and close to the enemy coast, were enormously dangerous. He was flying a Boulton Paul Defiant, a two-seat fighter with an incongruous rear turret, and by some miracle Lionel survived his first tour.

Then his squadron was re-equipped with a different aircraft for a different role as part of Bomber Command. Now he was flying the famous De Havilland Mosquito, the ‘wooden wonder’, and briefed not to wait and watch, but to attack enemy airfields and defences in the dead of night as one of a new breed of ‘Intruders’, destroying everything in their path. Finally, perhaps inevitably, Lionel’s luck ran out, and his family – and especially his mother and younger brother – were devastated.

Many of Lionel’s stories and tales of derring-do stuck with Gerry, long after his brother was killed. Lionel was remembered as a hero, just as all of Gerry’s lead characters – Scott Tracy, Mike Mercury, Troy Tempest etc – are heroes. His aircraft took on unimaginable powers, just as Gerry’s aircraft, submarines and cars take on such powers, and even the large portrait of Lionel that hung in the hallway of their apartment in North London is somehow remembered in the portraits of the Tracy boys in their Tracy Island home.

Gerry’s mother never accepted Lionel’s death, and in her grief wished it had been Gerry who had been killed, and not her first born. Again Gerry never forgot, and perhaps for this reason never included a mother figure in his most famous puppet family.

As a student of Bomber Command for many years, and having written many books on the subject, it is unusual to come across a story of such diverse interest, to me personally and, I hope, to those who read it. It has made me appreciate even more the genius of Gerry Anderson, and how our early lives shape so much of what we create and achieve as adults.

Sean Feast

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Casemate UK are proud to announce that they are now the official distributors for Fighting High Publishing, who have published:
A Thunder Bird in Bomber Command by Sean Feast.

 

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