Author: George Barclay
Publisher: Crecy Pub
ISBN: 9780947554477
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Author: David Crook
Publisher: Greenhill Books
ISBN: 1784387495
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 147

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Book Description
Spitfire Pilot is the exhilarating and moving memoir of D. M. Crook, an airman in the legendary 609 Squadron - one of the most successful RAF units in the Battle of Britain. Beginning with his fond recollections of his halcyon days in training - acrobatics, night flying and languorous days spent playing sport and nights off visiting Piccadilly Circus - Crook goes on to recount in thrilling detail the dogfights, remarkable victories and tragic losses which formed the daily routine of Britain's heroic aerial defenders in that long summer of 1940. Often hopelessly outnumbered, the men of 609 Squadron in their state-of-the-art Spitfires committed acts of unimaginable bravery against the Messerschmitts and Junkers of Germany's formidable Luftwaffe. Many of Crook's fellow airmen did not make it back alive, and the absence they leave in the close-knit community of the squadron is described with great poignancy. Spitfire Pilot offers a unique and personal insight into one of the most critical moments of British history, when a handful of men stood up against the might of the German Air Force in defence of their country. This definitive edition, the first for more than sixty years, includes a new foreword by David Crook's daughter and Air Vice Marshal Sandy Hunter, Honorary Air Commodore of the 609 Squadron. The book also has an introduction by Professor Richard Overy.

Author: Max Arthur
Publisher: Skyhorse
ISBN: 1628730463
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
After the fall of France in May 1940, the British Expeditionary Force was miraculously evacuated from Dunkirk. Britain now stood alone to face Hitler’s inevitable invasion attempt. For the German army to land across the channel, Hitler needed mastery of the skies—the Royal Air Force would have to be broken. So every day throughout the summer, German bombers pounded the RAF air bases in the southern counties. Greatly outnumbered by the Luftwaffe, the pilots of RAF Fighter Command scrambled as many as five times a day, and civilians watched skies crisscrossed with the contrails from the constant dogfights between Spitfires and Me-109s. Britain’s very freedom depended on the outcome of that summer’s battle: Its air defenses were badly battered and nearly broken, but against all odds, “The Few,” as they came to be known, bought Britain’s freedom—many with their lives. More than a fifth of the British and Allied pilots died during the Battle of Britain. These are the personal accounts of the pilots who fought and survived that battle. Their stories are as riveting, as vivid, and as poignant as they were seventy years ago. We will not see their like again.

Author: Jonathan Falconer
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 0752470493
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 69

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Book Description
Southern England. Late summer 1940. The nation is fighting for its very survival and the Luftwaffe's aerial offensive is unrelenting. All that lies between invasion and salvation for Britain is the 'thin blue line' of RAF Fighter Command and its pilots. This newly illustrated anniversary edition of Life as a Battle of Britain Pilot reveals what it was like to fly a fighter plane in the Battle of Britain. Who were the Spitfire and Hurricane pilots of 1940? How did they spend a typical day? And when pitched together in combat at 30,000 feet, which was the better machine - Spitfire or Me109? Read Life as a Battle of Britain Pilot and then ask yourself: would I have been up to the job?

Author: Helen Doe
Publisher: Amberley Publishing Limited
ISBN: 1445646129
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 373

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Book Description
A family-authorised biography of one of the top-scoring aces of the Battle of Britain.

Author: Arthur Donahue
Publisher: Amberley Publishing Limited
ISBN: 1445644746
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Book Description
The perfect illustrated introduction to the story of the Battle of Britain, daily life as a fighter pilot in the summer of 1940, written by a veteran.

Author: Dilip Sarkar
Publisher: Amberley Publishing Limited
ISBN: 144560986X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 511

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Book Description
The history of the Battle of Britain in the words of the pilots from a unique archive of first hand accounts.

Author: Brian Lane
Publisher: Amberley Publishing
ISBN: 1848683545
Category : Air pilots, Military
Languages : en
Pages : 122

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Book Description
The remarkable Battle of Britain experiences of Spitfire pilot Brian Lane, DFC. Brian Lane was only 23 when he when he wrote his dramatic account of life as a Spitfire pilot during the Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940. Lane was an 'ace' with six enemy 'kills' to his credit and was awarded the DFC for bravery in combat. The text is honest and vibrant, and has the immediacy of a book written close the event, untouched, therefore, by the doubts and debates of later years. Here we can read, exactly what it was like to 'scramble', to shoot down Messerschmitts, Heinkels, Dorniers and Stukas and how it felt to lose comrades every day. Squadron Leader Brian Lane DFC was not only an exceptional fighter pilot but likewise a gifted leader, at all levels. In what was still a hierarchical and class conscious culture, 'Chiefy' Lane was different: he knew everyone under his command by first names, no matter how lowly their rank or status, and in the air he was always unflappable, calmly making the right tactical decision and in the process earning unlimited respect amongst pilots and aircrew. All these years later the survivors still speak of him with an unparalleled affection and respect bordering upon a holy reverence. High drama has never before been so characteristically understated, written, as it was, by the 'Finest of the Few'.

Author: George Barclay
Publisher: Haynes Publishing UK
ISBN: 9780857332394
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
RAF fighter pilot George Barclay kept a personal diary of his time flying Hurricanes and Spitfires in 1940–41, including his rare contemporary account of flying Hurricanes with 249 Squadron in the Battle of Britain. This revised and re-illustrated edition of a book originally published in 1976 features previously unseen photographs and ephemera from Barclay’s personal albums, as well as offering new insights into his evasion in France and Spain in 1941. Barclay was later killed over El Alamein in 1942, shot down by German fighter ace Lt Werner Schröer. This diary is a rare, descriptive and articulate chronicle of the life of an RAF front-line fighter pilot in 1940–1.

Author: Robert Gardner
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1526746883
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 323

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Book Description
“The unique story of a radio broadcasting pioneer and war correspondent, told with affection by his son.” —Firetrench With the outbreak of World War II, Charles Gardner became one of the first BBC war correspondents and was posted to France to cover the RAF’s AASF (Advanced Air Strike Force). He made numerous broadcasts interviewing many fighter pilots after engagements with the Germans and recalling stories of raids, bomb attacks and eventually the Blitzkrieg when they all were evacuated from France. In late 1940 he was commissioned in the RAF as a pilot and flew Catalina flying boats of Coastal Command. After support missions over the Atlantic protecting supply convoys from America, his squadron was deployed to Ceylon which was under threat from the Japanese navy. Gardner was later recruited by Lord Mountbatten, to help report the exploits of the British 14th Army in Burma. He both broadcast and filed countless reports of their astonishing bravery in beating the Japanese in jungle conditions and monsoon weather. After the war, Gardner became the BBC air correspondent from 1946-1953. As such, he became known as “The Voice of the Air,” witnessing and recording the greatest days in British aviation history. But perhaps he will best be remembered for his 1940 eye-witness account of an air battle over the English Channel when German dive bombers unsuccessfully attacked a British convoy but were driven off by RAF fighters. That broadcast is still played frequently today.