A Keighley resident who survived one of the Royal Air Force’s most costly Second World War bombing raids features in a new book about the mission.

Harry Harris, 89, was a navigator on a Lancaster bomber.As members of 576 Squadron, he took part in a raid on Nuremburg, Germany, in March 1944, a raid in which 96 British bombers were shot down.

The harrowing story of the air crew involved has now been retold in The Red Line by writer John Nichol, a former Tornado navigator who was shot down during the First Gulf War and tortured by Saddam Hussein’s forces.

Mr Harris, who has lived in Keighley since 1976, responded to a request for information from Mr Nichol and provided many vivid details of his own experience.

Mr Harris said he and the rest of his seven-man crew returned unscathed, but witnessed the fiery destruction of many other British bombers.

He said: “It was terrible - we’d been told there would be clouds but instead it was a full moon night, and the German fighters were up there shooting our planes down.

“Some of the planes getting hit were close to us. One was flying slightly in front of us and a bit to the right, then all of a sudden we saw tracer bullets and this big explosion.

“Our bomber wasn’t attacked, which was just sheer luck.”