Download or read book Life as a Battle of Britain Spitfire Pilot written by Arthur Donahue and published by Amberley Publishing Limited. This book was released on 2015-06-15 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Spitfire Pilot written by David Crook and published by Grub Street Publishers. This book was released on 2008-06-30 with total page 111 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A brilliant first-hand account of the life of a fighter pilot” in World War II (The Spectator). Spitfire Pilot was written in 1940 in the heat of battle, when the RAF stood alone against the might of Hitler’s Third Reich. It is a tremendous personal account of one of the fiercest and most idealized air conflicts—the Battle of Britain—seen through the eyes of a pilot of the famous 609 Squadron, which shot down over one hundred planes in that epic contest. Often hopelessly outnumbered, David Crook and his colleagues, in their state-of-the-art Spitfires, committed acts of unimaginable bravery against the Messerschmitts and the Junkers. Many did not make it—and Crook describes the absence they leave in the squadron with great poignancy. Includes an introduction by historian Richard Overy

Download or read book Life as a Battle of Britain Pilot written by Jonathan Falconer and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2011-09-16 with total page 59 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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?

Download or read book Spitfire Ace written by Gordon Olive and published by Amberley Publishing Limited. This book was released on 2015-07-15 with total page 462 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The amazing story of one of ‘the Few’, Spitfire fighter pilot Gordon Olive, who shot down ten enemy aircraft during the Battle of Britain.

Download or read book Spitfire written by Brian Lane and published by Amberley Publishing. This book was released on 2009 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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'.

Download or read book Spitfire Voices written by Dilip Sarkar and published by Amberley Publishing Limited. This book was released on 2010-09-15 with total page 534 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spitfire fighter pilots tell their extraordinary stories of combat during the Second World War.

Download or read book Fighter Pilot written by Helen Doe and published by Amberley Publishing Limited. This book was released on 2015-05-15 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A family-authorised biography of one of the top-scoring aces of the Battle of Britain.

Download or read book Spitfire written by Dilip Sarkar and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2019-09-30 with total page 486 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A really excellent, detailed, comprehensive and moving history of 19 Squadron, RAF during the Second World War” from the author of Arnhem 1944 (Clash of Steel). As a child, Dilip Sarkar was fascinated by the haunting image of an anonymous RAF Spitfire pilot. Taken minutes after landing from a Battle of Britain combat, this was Squadron Leader Brian Lane DFC, the commander of 19 Squadron, based at Fowlmere. Deeply moving was the discovery that, in 1942, Brian was reported missing after a futile nuisance raid over the Dutch coast. During the mid-1980s, Dilip began researching the life and times of both Brian Lane and 19 Squadron, forging close friendships with many of the unit’s surviving Battle of Britain pilots and support staff. Nearly thirty years later, sadly all of the survivors are now deceased, but Dilip’s close relationship has provided a huge archive of correspondence and interviews in addition to a unique photographic collection. Furthermore, the author, a retired police detective, has thoroughly investigated the life—and death—of Squadron Leader Lane. This completely new Spitfire! covers everything we would ever need to know about such a unit during the critical pre and early war period: the social, political, aviation and military history all in one volume—emphasizing the human experience involved and the stories of casualties. With an immense photographic collection—many published here for the first time—this book is destined to become a classic. “The most thorough book about any squadron in RAF service during the Battle of Britain . . . an impeccable source of information and a gripping story—Most Highly Recommended.” —Firetrench

Download or read book Fighter Pilot written by George Barclay and published by Crecy Pub. This book was released on 1994 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Fighter Boy written by Barry Sutton and published by Amberley Publishing Limited. This book was released on 2010-05-15 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Battle of Britain memoir of Hurricane pilot Barry Sutton, DFC.

Download or read book Spitfire Pilot written by Roger Hall and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The intensely evocative memoir of one of 'the Few', Spitfire pilot Roger Hall. The Battle of Britain memoir of Roger Hall, a Spitfire pilot in 152 Squadron based in the South East of England, the heart of the fighting during the epic battle. Roger recounts in exhaustive detail his own experience of air-to-air combat with Me109s and Me110s (he shot down three enemy aircraft during the Battle of Britain), and that of his fellow pilots. Hall had no compunction in revealing his fear of wartime flying. He strips away the veneer of glory, smart uniforms and wild parties and uncovers the ordinary, very human young men who lived a life in which there was no tomorrow. There is no nostalgia here.

Download or read book Spitfire the Experiences of a Fighter Pilot written by Brian Lane and published by . This book was released on 2016-10-13 with total page 86 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lane was the author of Spitfire!, originally published in 1942 under the pseudonym B.J. Ellan. The book is a first hand account of his experiences as a front line Spitfire pilot and is one of only a few contemporaneous autobiographical accounts of the life of a Battle of Britain Spitfire pilot.

Download or read book How the Spitfire Won the Battle of Britain written by Dilip Sarkar and published by Amberley Publishing Limited. This book was released on 2010-10-15 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finally lays to rest the myth that the Hurricane won the Battle of Britain rather than the numerically inferior, yet more glamorous, Spitfire.

Download or read book Battle of Britain Spitfire Ace written by Peter J Usher and published by Air World. This book was released on 2024-08-30 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Battle of Britain Spitfire Ace is the story of a young Canadian who in a short time, and for a brief time, mastered Britain’s most legendary war machine, the Spitfire. It is also the story of a young English woman who was for a short time his wife, and for a long time his widow, and of their son who for much of his life knew little about his father and is still learning about him. Their stories, based on their letters, diaries, and photos, unfold in richly detailed context as the setting moves from Montreal in Nelson’s youth, England in the last years of peace, the first (and largely forgotten) months of the air war against Nazi Germany, Canada during the war, and finally to post-war England. William Henry Nelson was a first-generation Canadian Jew whose family name was originally Katznelson. Like many young Canadians in the 1930s, he wanted to fly. Nelson began work in Montreal’s aircraft industry, but in 1936, at the age of nineteen, he left a humdrum life on the ground to go to England, intent on becoming a pilot in the Royal Air Force. A year later he was posted to a bomber squadron. Willie (as his family and friends called him) was also a fine athlete. He was captain of his squadron’s team in Britain’s Modern Pentathlon competitions in 1938 and 1939. While stationed in Yorkshire, he met Marjorie McIntyre. Instantly smitten, they married days before the war began. Nelson was one of the first Canadians to fly in combat over Germany, only days after the war began. The award of a Distinguished Flying Cross a few months later made him an instant hero to the Jewish community across Canada. In Britain’s desperate situation in June 1940 Nelson volunteered to retrain as a fighter pilot. Within weeks he destroyed five enemy aircraft, so becoming the only Canadian Spitfire ace in the Battle of Britain. Few fought as both bomber and fighter pilot during the Second World War, even fewer managed to excel at both. Willie Nelson was shot down on the first day of November, 1940, near the English Channel. He never saw his adversary, who may have been one of Nazi Germany’s most decorated fighter pilots. Nelson was 23 years old, and by then the father of a two-month old boy, William Harle Nelson. Marjorie took her infant son to Canada in 1941, seeking to meet her late husband’s family and provide little Bill the opportunity for a better life. She was one of the first war brides to do so. Marjorie was unprepared for the gulf in culture and class with Willie’s mother, and she was shocked by the antisemitism she encountered in Montreal. She left the city after a few months to begin her life anew, alone in a strange country. Marjorie soon remarried a Canadian, Ted McAlister. In 1957 they moved to England where Bill, having taken his stepfather’s surname, would become a prominent figure in Britain’s cultural life. Only in his thirties, however, would Bill come to learn of the family and origins of the father he never knew. On the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, the Royal Air Force Museum in London featured Nelson in its exhibit about the ‘hidden heroes,’ the Jews who volunteered to fight in the RAF in the Second World War. Nelson had said little about his Jewish identity, though it was consequential to him and to others during his life and afterwards. Over the course of his four years in England, Willie Nelson refashioned himself. But who had he become? Who was the man behind the iconic portrayals, what had been his formative influences and his guiding lights? How did he come to do what he did and what, in those last few years in England, did he live and die for?

Download or read book Spitfire Pilot a Personal Account of the Battle of Britain written by Flight Lieutenant Crook DFC and published by . This book was released on 2016-05-19 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1939. The battle for the skies of Britain has just begun. At the outbreak of the Second World War D. M. Crook, of No. 609 Squadron AAF, was at Yeadon, still undergoing his training; by the winter of 1939-40, he had his wings. Successfully applying to return to his Squadron, then on defence duties in northern England, Crook began to familiarise himself with their new fighter: the Spitfire. Soon they were posted to RAF Northolt, and it was at this time that Crook, much to his chagrin, was left grounded, undergoing knee surgery as they flew over Dunkirk. Following the Allied evacuation from France, Crook returned to the air and found himself facing the relentless sorties as the skies above Britain transformed into a battlefield. In one particularly frank passage, Crook recounts how he mistakenly shot down a Blenheim, going on to illustrate how easy it was for pilots to misidentify aircraft. 'Spitfire Pilot' is a remarkable account of one officer's life in 609 Squadron, the excitement, the anxieties and the camaraderie, during one of the most famous battles of the Second World War. 'Crook and his colleagues committed acts of unimaginable bravery against the German aircraft. Many did not make it and the author describes the ansence they leave in the squadron with great poignancy. His descriptions of aerial conflict will rarely be bettered.' Magazine 'A brilliant first-hand account of the life of a fighter pilot before and during the Battle of Britain.' Spectator 'A unique personal insight into one of the crucial periods of the war ... I cannot recommend this highly enough.' World War II Magazine Flt. Lt. David Moore Crook, D.F.C. (1914-1944) was commissioned into the Auxiliary Air Force in September 1938, as an Acting Pilot Officer. In May 1940 he was promoted Pilot Officer, in December of the same year Flight Officer, before reaching the rank of Flight Lieutenant a year later. One of 'The Few' who fought in the Battle of Britain, where he won the D.F.C., in December 1944 he failed to return to base: his Spitfire was reported to have dived into the sea. He is commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial. Albion Press is an imprint of Endeavour Press, the UK's leading independent digital publisher. For more information on our titles please sign up to our newsletter at www.endeavourpress.com. Each week you will receive updates on free and discounted ebooks. Follow us on Twitter: @EndeavourPress and on Facebook via http://on.fb.me/1HweQV7. We are always interested in hearing from our readers. Endeavour Press believes that the future is now.

Download or read book Gun Button to Fire written by Tom Neil and published by Amberley Publishing Limited. This book was released on 2010-03-15 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The amazing story of one of the 'Few', fighter ace Tom Neil who shot down 13 enemy aircraft during the Battle of Britain.

Download or read book Life and Death in the Battle of Britain written by Guy Mayfield and published by Imperial War Museum. This book was released on 2016-11-10 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Guy Mayfield was the Station Chaplain at RAF Duxford during the Battle of Britain. His diary is a moving account of the war fought by the young pilots during that summer of 1940, providing a unique and intimate insight into one of the most pivotal moments in British history. Frequently speaking to pilots who knew they may not survive the next 24 hours, Mayfield’s diary provides a vivid account of the fears and hopes of the young men who risked their lives daily for the defense of Britain. Interspersed with photographs of the men and contextual narrative by IWM historian Carl Warner, this book brings a compelling and direct new perspective to this historic battle.