Customer Reviews

The Few: The American "Knights of the Air" Who Risked Everything to Fight in the Battle of Britain

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"The Few: The American 'Knights of the Air' Who Risked Everything to Fight in the Battle of Britain" is Alex Kershaw's third foray into the Second World War non-fiction genre, and once again he has amply demonstrated his abilities to weave a story and capture the attention of the reader.

With his first book, "The Bedford Boys: One American Town's Ultimate D-Day Sacrifice", Kershaw had as his centerpiece the story of National Guardsmen from the little town of Bedford, VA who comprised Company A 116th Infantry Regiment (29th Division) who took part in the initial Omaha Beach landings on 6 June '44, and lost 19 of its members KIA on D-Day alone. In the "Longest Winter: The Battle of the Bulge and the Epic Story of World War II's Most Decorated Platoon", Kershaw's sophomore effort, the historical centerpiece was the Intelligence and Reconnaissance (I&R) Platoon, 394th Infantry Regiment, 99th Infantry Division - a small group of men whose heroic stand at the small Belgian town of Lanzerath on 16 December 1944 against an overwhelming force (1st Battalion, Fallschirmjager Regiment 9) significantly stalled one of the main German efforts of the Ardennes Counteroffensive. So what is the 'small unit theme' of Kershaw's current effort "The Few"?

From the subtitle one would assume that the story in "The Few" revolves around a group of American aviators who flew with the RAF during the Battle of Britain. While this is not an entirely incorrect assumption the subtitle oversells the reality a bit. Certainly the central characters through which the string of narrative is connected are this small group of American fliers. Yet, in reality the overall story gains its real momentum and bite from the prose dedicated to the bigger picture of the Battle of Britain as told from the perspective of RAF fliers they fought with, and Luftwaffe fliers they fought against. By using this latter approach Kershaw weaves a fabulously engaging story of the Battle of Britain. This is a book that is hard to put down. It is unfortunate that Da Capo Press has chosen subtitles for Kershaw's last two books that don't fairly represent the book's contents. Kershaw however should not take the rap for his publisher wanting to sell books. Hopefully Da Capo now recognizes that they have a winner in their stable and they no longer need to hype Kershaw's books to sell them.

Anyone with even a passing interest in the Battle of Britain should give "The Few" a chance, they may find a deeper interest in the topic and delve deeper into the plethora of books out their dedicated to this topic. "The Few" is a 5 star read as primmer to the Battle of Britain from the perspective of individual and small groups of aviators on both sides of the Channel.

When war broke out in 1939, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt quickly issued a proclamation, making it illegal for any American citizen to join a warring power's military. Thankfully, a group of American men, committed to the cause of liberty, journeyed to Britain to do just that. And when the Battle of Britain raged, and that glorious "Few" saved Britain from Nazism, amongst them were a group of American pilots. This is the story of those wonderful young men who risked their lives, and often lost them, for the freedom of the world.

This is a fantastic book! The author does an excellent job of telling the story of the Battle of Britain, and the American fighter pilots who were a part of it. I could not put the book down, but just had to keep reading. This is one of the best books that I have read this year, and I highly recommend it to everyone!

During the Viet Nam war when Canadians were welcoming American draft dodgers and deserters, I wrote that there was another time when young American men broke American law and were welcomed by the Canadians. Only then it was Americans going to Canada to join the RCAF or a few who continued to England to join the RAF and fight the Battle of Britain. This is the story of that few . . . and what a story it is. Alex Kershaw brings it to life with an up close and personal view of their lives as well as the lives of the other young pilots in Spitfires and Hurricanes plus the German view of the battle from Me-109s and 110s.

Excellent and detailed descriptions of dogfights seem like fiction until you check the footnotes and find that they are taken from many actual individual combat reports. An excellent book and well worth the read! Alex Kershaw also wrote The Bedford Boys.

Eighteen months before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, the United States was at "peace", its citizens barred from joining the armed forces of any other nation. America's cowardly, anti-Semitic Ambassador to England, Joseph Kennedy, (the father of John F. Kennedy) was telling President Roosevelt and everyone else that Britain would lose to the Germans, that the Germans were invincible.

Eight Americans, however, made their way to England and joined the Royal Air Force (RAF). Some came simply because they wanted to fly Spitfires, one of the best performing aircraft of the day. A few were there to fight for freedom. All were liable to arrest and possible imprisonment at the time if they set foot in the United States.

Kershaw follows these brave young Americans and their role in the fight for freedom. Today, almost 70 years after they fought the Germans to preserve British - and the world's - freedom, you still want to suck in your breath at reading of their bravery.

To Kershaw's credit, he does not lionize these more-or-less typical American boys. Rather he presents them as young men, brave in that way only young men can be. Most were outgoing and ebullient. One of them came from a filthy rich family; most of the others were more typical of the Depression. All had flown small aircraft in their short civilian lives.

Now they were flying in what came to be known as the Battle of Britain, a part of the amazingly small corps immortalized by Churchill as the few to whom so many owed so much.

Kershaw is a marvelous writer, able to weave the stuff of ordinary life into a larger fabric of the constant fear these young men faced as their comrades spun into the English Channel or their planes dove into the ground. Kershaw captures the feeling of both sides of the conflict, spending considerable time on the German pilots. There are glimpses of the leaders: Churchill, Goring, Hitler.

But the focus is always on the "few", that handful of Americans who were first to reach out in the cause of freedom by putting on the uniform of the Royal Air Force.

It's a moving book and Kershaw is to be thanked for reminding us all that true heroism does exist and that freedom is worth fighting - and dying - for.

Jerry

This is the third World War II book from Alex Kershaw. Unlike many other writers who seem to want to cover the big stories of mighty armies, Mr. Kershaw seems to find small bands of American soldiers who just happened to be at a pivitol point in the war. I think this is an excellent approach. By concentrating on just a few men you get the feeling that you know them. And by knowing them you better understand the overall battle, even though you only see their little part.

In 'The Bedford Boys' he tracks a platoon of infantry from the very small town of Bedford, VA. 34 Bedford Boys were with the unit when they were the first to hit Omaha Beach. 19 were killed in the first few minutes.

In 'The Longest Winter' he writes of the Recon platoon of the 394th Infantry Regiment, 99th Infantry Division. They were ordered to hold a crossroads against the advancing Germans during the Battle of the Bulge while the rest of their unit pulled out.

In 'The Few' he talks of the American's who violated a whole bunch of international laws to fight with the British Eagle Squadrons during the Battle of Britain.

I highly recommend all of his books, and sincerely hope that he continues this approach of finding interesting small units to write about.

Having read Kershaw's two previous WWII narratives, The Bedford Boys and The Longest Winter, I was interested to read the stories he'd collected for The Few. As he's done previously, he scored some great stories of real people, real lives and unreal heroics in the face of the global tragedy of WWII as the Germans sought to destroy England.

I've read some minor criticisms of Kershaw's writing that state he doesn't give enough detail to overall contexts of the battles he references or that his historical facts seem to sometimes be in error. Well, anyone looking for names, dates, places, etc., can look in some dry old history text book for that kind of information. However, if you're interested in reading the personal stories about the people who made history and, in this case, who faced down the evils of those who sought to destroy Britain in 1940-41, then this narrative from Kershaw will be worth your time. Kershaw hasn't just devoted these stories to the American fly boys that skirted American neutrality laws for the chance to fly with the RAF (and mostly were killed long before America even entered the war), but also their British counterparts in the RAF as well as stories from pilots of Germany's Luftwaffe who flew against the RAF.

What I find most intriguing about Kershaw, who is English, is how he has chosen in each book to highlight a small group of Americans. Given that he's a Brit, I would think he might highlight stories from the history of the UK's involvement. If I could ask Kershaw only one question, I'd be most curious to find out his motivation for researching and writing about these small groups of Americans.

The other reviews and comments on here suggest that this is a remarkable book containing a wealth of insight and information about the handful of American pilots who flew with the RAF in the Summer of 1940 and afterwards. Besides a few tantalizing snippets of primary documents and descriptions of specific aerial battles, Kershaw really doesn't do much to provide his chosen subjects with a lot of depth.

The book starts off strong with an account of how three American civilian pilots secretly signed up with the French air force, first traveling to Canada and from there to Brittany and eventually Paris, all while the Germans were busy invading and the British army was evacuating at Dunkirk. To liven things up, Kershaw frequently tells events from the perspective of Churchill or a number of German pilots. This was the most interesting part of the book to me, because it was the part I hadn't known of before -- that American pilots risked losing their citizenship by breaking the neutrality laws.

After the three pilots reach England and are quickly accepted into the RAF, things get a bit simpler. Kershaw retells the familiar story of the Battle of Britain with plenty of action, dialogue, and other devices of creative nonfiction. But his original premise wears a bit thin. The five American pilots he focuses on didn't seem to be very involved in things, and if they were Kershaw doesn't really make this clear. By making his book such a quick and easy read, he's left out many details of setting and background that would have fleshed out the story he's telling. It reads largely like a rough draft or outline. Additionally, he intercuts his main narrative with a "Top Gun" story about two competing German aces - Adolf Galland and Werner Molders - which, rather than presenting the other side for reasons of even-handedness, merely distracts from the less famous people in the book.

It's the kind of book that makes you want to go out and read more, because it only scratches the surface. Billy Fiske, Eugene Tobin, Art Donahue, and the others surely deserve a book twice the length of this one.

When Winston Churchill eloquently spoke of the men who fought in the Battle of Britain, "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few," he wasn't just referring to British airmen. As Hitler spread his dominance throughout Europe, the Royal Air Force was the beneficiary of pilots from foreign lands looking to continue the fight.

Among the foreign contingent were seven Americans. Having violated US law, travelling from the US, in some cases first to France, then on to England, Alex Kershaw masterfully writes about their lives as fighter pilots for the RAF.

Don't read this if you are looking for a history of the battle of Britain. While Kershaw does an excellent job giving the reader a sense of the overwhelming odds faced by Britain just after the fall of Paris, this is the story of the American airmen who flew for the RAF during that crucial period in the war. The most famous of the airmen, as has been referenced in other reviews was two time bobsled gold-medalist, Billy Fiske. But although lacking in fame but not in courage were his fellow airmen Eugene Tobin, Charly Keough, Andrew Mamedoff, Hugh Riley, Art Donahue, and Phil Leckrone. Ultimately, they were the first of some 500 plus Americans who would fly for the RAF.

Kershaw certainly writes of heroism, but wonderfully shows how the Battle of Britain, the immense casualties suffered by the RAF, and the constant calls to get airborne, frayed the nerves of these very human, fliers. And not stopping with the Americans, the author provided some very interesting color on their enemy, the Luftwaffe, or the Huns as they were monikered. Included is the almost surreal competition among the top German aces to be the "heir" of Baron von Richtofen. And of course, Herman Gorring's leadership during this campaign is discussed.

Of the original seven, all but one made it through the war. Kershaw ends the book just as the 71 Eagle Squadron, the All-American squadron was just being formed and Pearl Harbor just occurred.

I would also suggest for any reader to scan through the endnotes. There are some truly classic stories that are revealed in detail. Among some of the things one learns is that the Luftwaffe had a much more capable search and rescue operation than the RAF. You also read about Billy Fiskes sqwuadron, the 601, also dubbed the millionaires. In an effort to ensure that their cars had sufficient gasoline, one of them bought a local gas station. Read for yourself, as the story is quite amusing (Page 252, note 54.). There are also some historical references of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force that highlights their crucial role during the war.

I picked this up at the Newark Penn Station Bookstore, a mandatory stop while waiting for my train.

The Few was truly a pleasure to read. Not mired in tradition military history minutae, Kershaw masterfully illustrated some of the bravest and often forgotten men of WWII. I highly recommend.

1. I'm aware of the Battle of Britain during the early phases of WWII, but I wasn't aware of "the few" Americans that joined in the fight as well as prohibition via America at that time in regards to having US citizens fight abroad.

2. All in all, this is a well written (engaging and interesting) and well documented book recounting the "the few" who... basically did the right thing, when America was in the isolationist mode. Highly recommended.

I learned much about the "Battle of Britain" and the eight Americans (one was listed on the RAF rosters as Canadian) who faught in it. Occuring before the US entered the war, this account is about the people who defended Britain from Hitler's attempt to destroy the RAF and London before invading the island. Hitler almost succeeded but for the heroism of the entire RAF including the eight Americans who, against the laws if the US enlisted and fought. Well written. Battle accounts are riviting. I highly recommend this book.