Beaufighter Boys cover art

Beaufighter Boys

True Tales from Those Who Flew Bristol’s Mighty Twin

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Beaufighter Boys

By: Graham Pitchfork, ACM Sir David Cousins KCB AFC RAF [RTD] - foreword
Narrated by: Shawn Compton
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About this listen

Researched many years ago by the author for a project which did not come to fruition, Beaufighter air and ground crew gave freely of their stories which ranged from complete memoirs to brief anecdotes.

Graham Pitchfork has built on these reminiscences to trace the roles of Beaufighter squadrons spread across all the theaters of World War Two operations. From home bases, through north-west Europe, North Africa, Malta, and the Mediterranean to the far Far East and south-west Pacific, the Beaufighter served far and wide as did the crews of the RAF, RAAF, SAAF, and New Zealand and Canadian squadrons. All are covered in this quite unique book to be savored by all those interested in the war in the air from 1939-1945.

©2019 Graham Pitchfork (P)2019 Tantor 20th Century Air Forces Armed Forces Engineering Military Military & War Modern World War II Aviation War
All stars
Most relevant  
As above, it made for absorbing listening and added to my knowledge of the aeroplane’s history

Sober and factual

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Not a bad listen, but not a great one either. The constant mispronunciation of British towns was particularly grating

Interesting stories interspersed with some tedious narrative

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The American accent of the narration is off putting when reading the first person accounts of the crews , all of whom were from the British Commonwealth .
There were numerous glaring examples of mispronunciation giving the impression that the narrator was not familiar with his topic .

Great story , performance , boot so much

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While the book itself was good; interesting and informative, the narrator was woeful, clearly without any knowledge or understanding of any aspect of the subject matter whatsoever, military, historical or geographical. Being an American only made it worse. Terrible.

A Good Book, ruined by terrible Narrator.

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A fascinating set of collected histories of the Beaufighter during and after WWII, in all theatres. Unfortunately, somewhat let down by some particularly jarring mispronunciation of some words - while I understand that many Australian place names are difficult for non-natives, every time "Junkers" type planes were said with a hard "J" was particularly jarring!

Mostly good

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A good book spoiled!
As always with Graham Pitchfork the content of this book is detailed, excellently researched and authoritative, but, why an American narrator?
As so often with American narrators Shawn Compton is seemingly unable to either pronounce English correctly or take the time to research the correct pronunciation.
Like many other listeners I understand that the English market is probably not the largest within Audibles business but it is endlessly irritating to have to listen to incorrectly pronounced names & places.
I find it very upsetting that a so called professional hasn't taken the trouble to ensure that his delivery is accurate.
It also reflects badly on Audible as a company that such an obvious flaw has passed through their 'editorial process'
I suspect that an English narrator guilty of such laxity would be 'corrected'
The gauntlet is thrown down Audible - will you pick it up?

Why?

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Loved the subject. An underrated, unglamorous, but important British aircraft of WW2.
However, laughable, painful narration.
Heinkel 3. Is this a new aircraft, the Germans used in WW2? Wait, no its a Heinkel one-eleven.
Junkers, with a hard pronunciation of J.
A Blenheim, not a Bristol Blenheim, but a Blenhime.
Wonder how he would say Worcestershire sauce?

Terrible narration

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The stories contained were great however the narration let it down. There was a distinct lack of familiarity with terms and names that were incorrectly pronounced. An American accent didn’t fit the narrative of an essentially British topic.

Great stories.

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This should have been a great story. But it was destroyed by the appalling choice of narrator. He clearly did not research the book first, as he does not understand the terminology and acronyms used. To add insult to injury, the narrator is quite uninspiring in his reading; there is little inflexion or character to bring out the story. Also using an American voice for a British story is not the best fit. I was so disappointed with this, I could finish the book. I will NOT be listening to any more stories using this narrator.

The worst narration

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Surely Audiobooks can pick a narrator who has a bit of knowledge about his subject. When so much must go into the production of an audiobook, how can it be that a narrator is chosen who is so unsuitable for the book and has no idea what he is talking about. Woefull. Such a shame.

Unsuitable narrator

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In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.