Developed, tested and brought into service in the first desperate years of the Second World War, the arrival of the first British fourengined heavy bomber of the Second World War marked a turning point in the aerial warfare of that conflict. In the years that followed, Stirling squadrons were at the forefront of the developing tactics of the Allied bomber campaign including target marking, pathfinding, electronic navigation, and the thousand bomber raids.

Despite this leading role the Stirling has never enjoyed the standing of the Halifax but still proved to be versatile and adaptable as a glider tug, transport in secret SOE operations, and later as a civilian transport in the immediate post-war years.

The Stirling Story is the culmination of years of exhaustive research by one of the worlds foremost aviation authors. From original design specification and testing, through development, introduction to service, developing marks and later adaptations, the full story of the Shorts Stirling bomber is told with the aid of eyewitness accounts from the designers, production workers, engineers and above all the aircraft crews.