Customer Reviews

First Light

5 star:		(39)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

You'd think that after 50 years, all the worthwhile first-person there-I-was accounts of flying Spitfires in the Battle of Britain would have been published. You'd be wrong.

This is an exceptionally well written book that gently yet almost instantly transports you to England, 1939. You'll go through RAF flight training, and then be behind a V12 Merlin over Kent in the middle of the Battle of Britain. There are hundreds of such true tales - and I've read most of them - but this is clearly one of the best.

'Boy' Wellum not only takes us inside the cockpit, but inside the emotions of a young man at war, and inside an amazing time and place in world history. If you are a pilot looking for what it was like to fly the Tiger Moth, Harvard, then at 168 hours climb into a Spitfire, this is the book for you. And if you are interested in a literate immersion into The Few, this is the book for you.

This is a very compelling book. As the son of a Second World War veteran of the European phase of the war, in reading Mr. Wellum's account, I want to thank him for helping to make real in my mind, the stresses that war places on you. In particular, while reading the chapter in which Mr. Wellum describes his chase of a Junkers 88 bomber in foul weather and his subsequent efforts to return to his airbase, I felt as if I were the cockpit with him, hoping that I'd get down safely and in one piece!

Having read other books by and about the famous RAF aces (Bader, Tuck, and Paul Richey), I recommend this book very highly. It's very well-written and will give you a deeper appreciation for the sacrifices made by the Second World War generation. Thank you, Mr. Wellum, for your service and for this book. There are many more people than you may realize who are grateful for what you have written. Thank you again.

`First Light' is one of those books that is destined to be remembered as a "classic" and rightly so. This is a wonderful book of a young man who joined the Royal Air Force before the start of World War Two and who later fought during the Battle of Britain and survived. Most of the book is taken up with his training as a pilot and the fighting during the Battle of Britain. However the book continues on to cover his role in Operation Pedestal and the fighting over Malta until his return to England as a tired and worn out pilot.

I truly enjoyed Geoffrey Wellum's story of his training and chuckled a good many times whilst reading about one thing or another. Mr Wellum has a wonderful way of telling a story and you can easily picture the details as you read his narrative. I found myself amazed as I read the book of how much this young man and his friends suffered in defending their country and their mates in the air.

This is an account that anyone who has an interest in WW2 aviation will be delighted in. It's well told, full of humor, sadness, and death defying flying and combat action. These men, as young as 18, flew one of the fastest and deadliest aircraft at the time and many didn't make it through the campaign or even their first mission. You read with sadness the loss of many good pilots and friends but still the men continue flying day after day facing terrible odds.

I really enjoyed the author's style of writing, he was witty, descriptive and came across with a sense of telling a story with understated facts. He downplayed his own role during the Battle of Britain and I was really hooked on the narrative as it moved along at a cracking pace. I found it hard to put the book down late at night, which brought forth a moan from my wife about turning the lamp off or else!

This is a great story and in finishing I would like to add the following comment from a great historian about this book: "A work of exceptional quality.....his prose has a passion and immediacy which make it compelling reading" - Max Hastings. He's not wrong either!

Not being much of a reader of books, I decided one day to pass by my local bookshop and try out the experience. I had no clue what to get and after 30 minutes fruitless searching I found myself trudging towards the shop exit. Determined not to feel like I hadn't made an effort, I made a final and slightly desperate search through the display table at the front of the shop. The last book I looked at for some reason felt right, I don't know why but it did. I took it to the counter and as I paid for it, I felt an overwhelming certainty that I was going to enjoy it. "First Light" by Geoffrey Wellum, yes, definately a good choice.

I'm rather an optimist by nature but even I didn't expect to be quite so taken by this book. It was a real privelige to read and I dare say that for a now budding reader like myself I shall never quite find anything to rival it.

I experienced all sorts of emotions reading this book, from laughing out loud to trying to keep "a stiff upper lip" I was riveted from the first page by the warmth and honesty of the writing.

I feel very humble indeed knowing what these men did for us. And I feel an overwhelming sense of sadness that the world these men fought so hard to protect, has fast become so selfish and unprincipled.

I only wish I could turn back the clock and live the way it was back then. It wasn't perfect by any means, but it had heart. And if there's one thing that stands out in this book than that is it - Heart. Mr Wellum cared, about his country, about his family, about his friends and about himself.

He says at the end of the book that his only regret was that his life had already reached it's pinnacle by the time he was 22. Well, I'd like to respectfully disagree.

Thank you Mr Wellum for your wonderful story, you have inspired me immensely and left me feeling very proud to be British.

I fully agree what Mark Hopper had to say in his review. For me the book was definitely 'life-changing'. I know from history how important and vital the Battle of Britain was, but seeing the battle portrayed in films and reading it in history books just didn't have the impact as Geoffrey Wellum's account. He's certainly the person who sits on my 'hero pedestal' now. Please write some more Geoffrey and detail for us how the rest of the war was for you. How did the war affect your life in subsequent years? Did you marry Grace? You have done all your old friends and comrades a great service by writing this book. Well done and thank you.

As other reviewers have noted, there have been enough books written about the Battle of Britain to fill several warehouses. Some good, some not so good. This is one of the most personal and satisfying accounts that you will ever read. Geoffrey "Boy" Wellum was in the thick of it, and brings the reader along for the ride. In the beginning you feel the excitement of flight training (and the ever-present danger). By the end you experience the mental and physical exhaustion that left this veteran pilot certain he would never survive the endless combat missions over his home country and eventually over occupied France. And when he was finally released from operational flying... he "rested" by teaching others to fly and as a test pilot! My only disappointment in this book is that it ended. It's hard to believe that in the past 6-7 months we've been given two great reads on the Battle: "Fighter Boys" and "First Light."

I picked up this book on my departure from Gatwick about a year ago and only just got around to reading it. As I was reading I wondered why it took me so long as I found it hard to put down. The author's experiences during the Battle of Britain are gripping and put the reader right in the cockpit.
His first hand accounts of battle in a Spitfire are first class.
In addition to this book I also recommend the novel "Piece of Cake" by Derek Robinson for anyone interested in this period.

I agree in a very general way with the two-star reviewer, although he may have been somewhat over-harsh, apparently less than glowing reviews of this book are unpopular here, but it is by no means among the best RAF memoirs, probably not in the first 10.If you havent read any others, do not make Wellum's your first, it may either make or break your interest. It gets a bit surreal, ethereal and poetic which Im not really sure works in war memoirs, and am not convinced that these would have been Wellum's emotions at the time, even though it may be the emotion of his reminisce about it.
There is really not that much to it or in it in particular, if you read a lot of ww2 flying memoirs, then its a must-read as another angle.

There is unavoidable faint disappointment in it if you go in with high expectations, as I did.
Books by guys like Hugh 'Cocky' Dundas (Flying Start arguably the best of all) Neville Duke's "Test Pilot", Pierre Clostermann's superb "Big Show",Johnson's Wing Leader , and Rawling's "night Fighter", are at least 2 stars ahead of this....one of the best German memoirs is the little-known rarity by a self-deemed "average-mediocre" Luftwaffe pilot by the name of Henn.
There is a good one by a Dutchman as well, but I have never seen it in an english edition which is a shame, as he also fought in the Blitzkrieg on Holland with Fokker fighters, then became Free Dutch flying Spitfires.

Prefer any of those first to this one.

I very much enjoyed Wellum's account of his involvement in one of the most critical times of our world's near history. His personal and conversational writing style brings a fresh and candid account of his heroic time as one of Britain's most valuable fighter pilots. I also found it unique for the author to bring a personable understanding to himself and others during a time more trying than most of us could ever imagine.

I do recommend this book. A great read!!

I picked the English edition of this book up in London two weeks ago (it's Number Four on their best-seller list now). As a student of the Battle of Britain, this book was a real treat. I read it in conjunction with "Fighter Boys" (out now) and found the two works complimented each other very well. Wellum was the youngest operational Spitfire pilot in combat during the Battle, and his accounts of training and flying combat missions in the fall of 1940 are first-rate. His description of flying head-on into a formation of Heinkel 111 is the stuff of adventure novels -- only these events really happned and he lived to tell the tale.
The book falters a little toward the end. Although there are clues given that Wellum was sufferering from combat exhaustion, he tends to gloss over that portion of his service. The book ends rather abuptly as well. This is a shame because the bio tells us Wellum went on as a test pilot for Hawker Typhoons and Meteor jets. Given the author's success in detailing flying sequences, I would have loved to read more about his adventures in the cockpits of these rare airplanes.