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24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
From Sopwiths To Spitfires, August 27, 2003
This review is from: Fighter Boys: The Battle of Britain, 1940 (Hardcover)
My prediction is that this book will be nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. If I'm wrong....well, I shouldn't be. That's how good it is. Patrick Bishop has written a thorough, thoughtful and exciting book. He starts off with a quick military history of the aeroplane, covering WWI and including the years between WWI and WWII. He compares developments in Germany and Britain, and charts the organizational evolution of the RAF. We learn about the planes and the people, as well as the processes involved in recruiting and training pilots. Mr. Bishop zeroes in on several pilots, quoting from their letters to family and sweethearts, as well as from memoirs. This provides the human connection, so that we are anxious each time the author describes a dogfight over France, the Channel or England. We are hoping the Hurricanes and Spitfires will all land safely......even though we know they won't. Each time a pilot is killed, we feel it in the pit of the stomach. I've never flown a plane, but I've never been taken closer to the experience than I have in this book. Mr. Bishop magically transports us to the world inhabited by fighter pilots. We learn how the controls feel, what it's like to be in combat (constantly having to move your head around to make sure there are no enemy planes coming at you from any direction...while also going 350 miles an hour and trying to shoot down another plane going the same speed which is taking evasive action), the boredom while waiting to go on a mission....and the fear of being burned, crippled or killed. These men constantly put up a front by joking and downplaying their achievements. But Mr. Bishop never lets us forget their bravery. During the height of the Battle of Britain these men were going up on missions 3 and 4 times a day. They saw fellow pilots go missing, or being wounded or killed, every day. They visited friends in the hospital who were burned so badly that they needed reconstructive surgery. When flying over the Channel they worried about being shot down and, if they survived that experience, dying from hypothermia or by drowning. Regarding the enemy, it was sometimes easy to forget that the German fighters and bombers contained people. With the speed and confusion of combat it seemed normal to think you were fighting a machine rather than a man. Occasionally, the reality was brought home to you- such as when you saw an enemy pilot stuck in his cockpit, frantically attempting to bail out as his damaged plane nosedived into a sickening spin. All pilots loved to fly, but few enjoyed killing. You went up every day and did what you had to do. It helped that you were flying over the land that you loved, and that you knew that the fellow in the Heinkel was trying to drop bombs on that land, and on people that you knew.....and the fellow in the Messerschmitt was trying to make sure that the Heinkel got through to its target. Mr. Bishop never lets us forget how young most of the pilots were...usually, they were in their early 20's. Frankly, at the speeds these planes were going, most men over 30 didn't have the reflexes necessary to avoid being shot down. Because of their youth, most of the men who perished never had the opportunity to fall in love, let alone marry and have a family. They willingly sacrificed themselves so that Britain would have a future as a free country. Winston Churchill was right, and we owe a great deal to Patrick Bishop for not letting us forget this pivotal moment in history.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Your Own Lawnchair, December 18, 2004
This review is from: Fighter Boys: The Battle of Britain, 1940 (Hardcover)
When you think of the Battle of Britain, one of the most common images conjured up is of pilots asleep or reading or some other thing in a lawnchair, easy chair or perhaps an old deckchair moved outside. I think the best thing I can say about Patrick Bishop's "Fighter Boys: The Battle of Britain, 1940" is that he does an amazing job of putting you in one of those chairs. This is not really a military critique or history of the battle, although Bishop does do some of this. What the author seems to want to do is give you the experience of being in the battle with the pilots that were really there. We meet several pilots and we go with them into the air, into combat and into the pubs of England. We feel what it is like to sit in one of those chairs wondering when the bell would ring and the order to scramble would come. We also feel what it must have been like to sit in one of those Spitfires or Hurricanes and see the formations of bombers in our windscreens. We must deal, as the pilots did, with the daily sameness of waiting, flying, fighting and coming home to pass out from exhaustion. We feel the fear of facing the formations of bombers, facing the dangers to our loved ones at home and facing the knowledge that we can't know if and when the adversary will give up, or if and when we might have to give up. We see comrades and friends die. We see them die, as must happen in these circumstances, in horrific, violent ways. We see them lost to the enemies fire and we see them lost tragically and yes, sometimes stupidly, in accidents. They also die, most frustratingly of all, because of miscalculations that send them into combat in machines that are not quite up to the tasks. And at the end of each flight, we retire back to the chair on the lawn, exhausted, passing out almost before we are fully seated, waiting again for the bell to ring and for everything to start all over. Fighter Boys is really the pilot's stories. There are many wonderful books that analyze the military aspects of the Battle of Britain. This book takes more of a look at the human aspects of the same battle. If you've ever wondered what it might have been like to sit with the pilots of the Battle of Britain and fly alongside them, this book is probably your best opportunity.
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Well-researched, detailed and comprehensive history, December 14, 2003
This review is from: Fighter Boys: The Battle of Britain, 1940 (Hardcover)
As a modern-era fighter pilot, I devour good books and movies describing the evolution of my trade. There have been many dramatic books and movies created describing the "Battle of Britain" and the events surrounding it, but Fighter Boys goes beyond these. It is an extremely comprehensive non-fiction work, a completely historical, detailed recollection based of incredible research by the author including interviews with the pilots who fought and survived, and the families and letters of those who did not survive. It is liberally sprinkled with the pilot's own words, describing their thoughts and feelings about aerial combat, and relating their own experiences. It also includes some recollections from the German side. The book even devotes quite a bit at the beginning relating the many and varied experiences of the pilots getting into the fighter cadre - their training and initiations, and the varied backgrounds they had. This can seem tedious to the reader looking for dramatic action, but it is essential to laying the basis for the way Fighter Command evolved from a privileged flying club to a "multi-class" tight-knit organization. When the fighting actually starts, the first hand accounts add a dramatic flare that fiction can't duplicate. The book gives a comprehensive understanding of the stresses, fears and excitement of aerial combat. A very good read for those serious about the history of air warfare.
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