During the Battle of Berlin in the winter of 1943 my friend and his crew on 50 Squadron at Skellingthorpe were approaching the end of their tour of operations of 30 when they were asked by Hamish Mahaddie to join the Pathfinders and go straight into a second tour.
The younger members of the crew were very keen because "You got an extra bob (5p) per day and an enamel Pathfinder badge which was ideal for chatting up the girls in the pub.
My friend, being older and wiser counselled caution and time to think about it and the Pathfinder option was never mentioned again although he did say that if his crew had insisted he would have gone along with it although they never would have survived the extended tour.
Interestingly, he told me that he survived because they didn't go straight onto a Pathfinder tour during that lethal winter and that his Captain had refused to accept the installation of the H2S ground mapping radar onto the aircraft which unknown to him the Luftwaffe nightfighters were homing on to to attack the RAF bombers.