As the long trudge towards the general election begins and the news media speculate on a myriad of hypothetical scenarios as to what the brave new world might bring, we are taking a look back at one of the most prominent British leaders and what remains of the values and ideals that he championed.

For April’s members’ BookNight, we are pleased to welcome Patrick Bishop, who will present his book Churchill’s Funeral over an intimate dinner with Frontline Club members.

After Churchill passed away 50 years ago, his funeral gave rise to unprecedented scenes of public mourning, and the conviction that Britain would never be the same again. In his book, Patrick reflects back on Churchill’s leadership during the Second World War to explore how a man who had as many enemies as supporters has managed to gain such a prominent place in our social history.

Patrick Bishop is the author of the critically acclaimed and best-selling Fighter Boys, Bomber Boys, 3 Para and Target Tirpitz. Previously a foreign correspondent for over twenty years, he has reported from conflicts all over the world, and was for many years Middle East correspondent for the Daily Telegraph.

Guests will be expected to have read the book, ready and willing to contribute to the discussion. This will not be a standard format Q&A but an in-depth discussion.

The evening will start with drinks at 7:00 PM, following by a a sit-down dinner at 7:30 PM. We will get to know one another over starters before the introduction of the evening’s guest author. Patrick will then make his presentation and open the floor to discussion.

The event will be hosted by Frontline Club director, Pranvera Smith, and a founding member and senior correspondent at The Guardian & The Observer, Ed Vulliamy.

Menu £25 per person excluding drinks

Throughout their six months on the ground, the paras were locked in almost non-stop combat with the Taliban. The idea came from the MoD and 3 Para’s commanding officer, Stuart Tootal. Harper Collins, due to family connections to the paras, published. It head-hunted Bishop, author of much-praised World War II battle sagas, to write. While it bears the fluid, engaging hallmarks of Bishop’s style, his usual journalistic expertise and analytical ability are not easily discerned this time. He does his best to balance the tale with caveats, but there are too many military hands on the message to make a critical study.

The battle group is deployed in an environment of such abject strategic confusion that it is a wonder they were not immediately routed. Their mission is given as a take-your-pick mix of civil reconstruction and fighting, with a bit of counter-narcotic intervention for good measure. The chain-of-command is a baffling Gordian Knot of Americans, Canadians, NATO types, Afghan officials and Whitehall. The paras lack the right kit, ammunition and enough helicopters. Clausewitz would have written off any chance of their success by chapter two. While the paratroopers get on with it as paras do, their commanders confound their efforts with a contentious series of decisions that British troops in Afghanistan are still paying for now. Rather than preserve the battle group’s cohesion and confine its efforts to their designated triangular area of responsibility, the unit is split into quarters and deployed piecemeal across northern Helmand in isolated defensive positions. In Sangin, Musa Qala, Nawzad and Kajaki, the paras find themselves bogged down in furious defensive battles which continue to the end of their tour. Reconstruction of infrastructure was a non-starter. The paras returned home, leaving areas around their bases smoking, depopulated ruins.

According to the book, the blame for these decisions appears to rest solely on the shoulders of Helmand’s provincial governor, Mohammed Daoud. Britain had chosen him for the position, but President Hamid Karzai removed him for being too intelligent and not nasty enough. Nevertheless, it stretches belief that a middle-ranking Afghan civilian held such influence on the deployment of a British battle group. Perish the thought that our own commanders ever bungled. It’s war all right, but in a version diluted by the MoD.

Reviewer: Anthony Loyd is author of Another Bloody Love  Letter.

They scored bulls-eyes on industrial and military targets. They also slaughtered innocents. “It’s a fair assumption that when Tom dropped our bombs women and boys and girls were killed,” one wrote home.

Most were not much older than their child victims. “Twenty-one with a face far too sensitive for this business,” was Martha Gellhorn’s verdict on the pilot of a tightly knit, impenetrable bomber crew, “…anyone who had not done what they did could not understand.”

Following the success of Fighter Boys, Patrick Bishop, whose own war reporting includes the Falklands and Afghanistan, has produced another thoughtful and superbly written book about courage and comradeship. But this time the contest is not as clear- cut as 1940’s summer vapour trails over southern England.

It took until 1962 to establish that the Anglo-American bombing of Germany wiped out some 593,000 civilians. This is almost 10 times what Britain lost in air raids and V-rocket attacks. Air Marshall Sir Arthur”Bomber” Harris declared, “They that sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind.”

The Germans called Harris’s squadrons Terrorflieger. Yet they were the only war criminals who stood a better chance of dying than their potential victims. Bomber aircrew 25 per cent from Australia, New Zealand, Canada and white Southern Africa provided one in 10 of British and Commonwealth war dead. Fifty-five thousand died.

Almost 10,000 were taken prisoner, often having been injured when their aircraft were hit. The survival rate for a first tour of 30 missions was about fifty-fifty.

On about 350 occasions, outraged civilians butchered parachuted aircrew. Five weeks before Hitler’s suicide, a badly wounded sergeant pilot surrounded by a screaming mob in the Ruhr “feebly raised his arms to surrender.” One Friedrich Fischer sent a child for a hammer to finish him off. An Allied court, dismissing Fischer’s pleas that he had been driven crazy by bombing, hanged him.

“Victor’s justice,” says Bishop. But, while honouring British churchmen who dared to protest against aerial massacre, his absorbing book is an unqualified tribute to the men who enjoyed the “overwhelming approval of the people they were fighting for.”

Harper Press £20