Customer Reviews

The Last Enemy: The Memoir of a Spitfire Pilot (Classics of War)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In 50 years of reading Battle of Britain books, and having personally known some of those pilots, this is the finest account I have read of the reasons men became a Royal Air Force fighter pilots who stopped the Luftwaffe cold.

It's not an aerial combat book. The author spent three weeks plus a couple of days in Battle of Britain combat before he was shot down, burned so badly that he was out of action from September 1940 until early 1943. The book was written during that long period of convalescence, when he had time to think. When he recovered enough to fly, he vanished on a training flight.

Hillary admits, "We were disillusioned and spoiled. The press referred to us as the Lost Generation and we were not displeased. Superficially we were selfish and egocentric without any Holy Grail in which we could lose ourselves." Those were the pilots, the majority of who died in defending their country in a manner that led Sir Winston Churchill to assert, "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."

Hillary wrote about the attitudes of pilots and the public during those precious few summer weeks when Germany tried to seize control of the skies and then invade England. Such terms as "heroic" come later, usually from those who weren't in the midst of it all. British pilots and civilians were simply content to do a job and spare others the burden of such sacrifice.

That spirit was nicely summed up by a London cab driver, when hundreds were killed every night and fires cut massive swaths through East London, who commented, "Thank God, sir. Jerry's wasting `is time trying to break our morale, when `e might be doing real damage on some small town." Later, a chaplain from East London, told him "my people have fallen from grace: they are beginning to feel a little bitter toward the Germans."

Hillary was one of the pre-war English elites who were educated at the better public schools such as Eton, Shrewsbury, Wellington, and Winchester. He attended Trinity College, Oxford, where he spent a lot of time rowing and flying as a member of the University Air Squadron. Except for the war, he could automatically have become one of the colonial ruling class of the Government of the Sudan, a "country of blacks ruled by Blues in which my father had spent so many years."

The war wasn't an exercise in grim determination to save democracy and all that rot. Instead, for Hillary, "I was glad for purely selfish reasons. The war solved all problems of a career, and promised a chance of self-realization that would normally take years to achieve. As a fighter pilot I hoped for a concentration of amusement, fear, and exaltation which it would be impossible to experience in any other form of existence."

Men such as him -- rich, pampered, spoiled and privileged -- saved the free world. As the book winds along, it shows Hillary's growing realization of the underlying stakes He wasn't heroic, he merely did his duty. He wrote this book, superbly capturing the mood of the pilots. Then he died.

The book is a monument to the spirit of the men who saved our freedom.

This is a beautifully written account of one pilot's participation in a crucial WW2 battle. The book does not fall flat because the author spent only a relatively brief period in action; his description of his privileged period at Oxford, and of fighter training at the beginning of the time, are worth reading in their own right.

However, the real subject of this book is the recovery (sadly incomplete) he made from the horrific burns suffered after being shot down on the War's first anniversary. Burns treatment was crude before the outbreak of WW2, and shot-down pilots were the guinea pigs who enabled huge advances in this field to be made. (Hillary's plastic surgeon was the great Sir Archibald McIndoe.) Hillary's courage in fighting his way to this recovery, and the candour with which he describes it, make this book the best memoir I have read of the War.

This is not simply the story of a Spitfire pilot in the Battle of Britain. It is an account of dawning self-realisation in a twenty year old man, experiencing battle, injury and loss.

Hillary takes us from the rarified air of pre-war Oxbridge priviledge, into the Battle of Britain. It is during this period that Hillary is shot down in flames, suffering disfiguring burns to his face and hands. For many months following, Hillary undergoes agonising facial reconstruction. As we find from his book, whilst enduring this bodily transformation, and experiencing the loss of his closest pilot friends, he is also reconstructing his psychic self.

The Last Enemy is an invaluable read as a personal account of air warfare, and as a social commentary on the Oxbridge Volunteer Reservists. However, it is Hillary's exploration of himself, in the face of tragedy, to make sense of his suffering, and that of wider humanity, that marks this (sometimes uneven) read out as a truly profound article of wartime literature.

Richard Hillary's experienced voice reverberates in The Last Enemy, his memoir about life as a Spitfire pilot during World War II. Hillary details his battle encounters while recounting the events he witnessed, and the emotions he felt. Like other war memoirs, the author concludes with revelations that display his maturation in the crucible of conflict. He enters the RAF as a spoiled Oxford undergraduate, filled with youthful selfishness; by the end, however, death and violence have awakened him to the folly of his past egocentrism. More important, his role in the Battle of Britain and his death in action in 1943, although not included in the book, augments the work's importance.

Despite Hillary's devotion to literature, The Last Enemy's historical value supercedes its literary qualities. His descriptions of the general mood of London and its citizens during the Blitz, for example, are as close to a primary document as the average reader will probably come. Moreover, interspersed throughout the narrative are journalistic, almost indifferent reports of the deaths of his comrades. His account of pilot training and midair dogfights may also arouse excitement in World War II buffs. And when he writes that "to love one's country is vulgar, to love God archaic, and to love mankind sentimental" (126), he expresses the apathy of many spoiled youths from his era. Essentially, Hillary's personal account fulfills the criteria of an effective memoir.

His book is imperfect, however. A self-proclaimed dilettante, Hillary's prodigal upbringing allowed him to dabble in many leisurely pursuits-from literature to rowing. This eclecticism manifests itself in the digressions that often plague his writing. Yet the book's greatest flaw perhaps lies in the unrealistic dialogue, on which much of the book is founded. In a heated discussion after a mutual loved one's death, for example, a woman complains to Hillary about his "intellectual subterfuges and attempts to hide behind the cry of self-realization" (189). A reader must ask: "How often does a person's speech resemble such a phrase?" And the ideological discussions between Hillary and various others can be twice as highfalutin. Thus, Hillary occasionally abandons an exact, truthful rendition of events for the sake of a good yarn.

Despite any flaws-which are, to an extent, the reader's own bias-The Last Enemy offers itself as a compelling addition to the canon of valuable WWII memoirs. Concise and personal, it could both introduce some readers to RAF fighter pilots' lot in the war and reinforce other readers' preexisting knowledge of the topic. War not only lessens Hillary's smug, selfish ways, but ultimately reveals to him the importance of such ancient values as courage and camaraderie. If his story were to do the same for any reader, it would be worth the investment of time.

The Last enemy is a contemporary account written by an RAF fighter pilot who flew Spitfires during the Battle of Britain. Prior to the war, the author led a comfortable upper class lifestyle; he was attending Oxford, had numerous friends, rowed and fancied becoming a writer. Moreover, he had an interest in flying and was a member of the University Air Squadron. When the Germans invaded Poland, he and his friends in the Air Squadron were, after a short delay, sent to training units, and after Dunkirk, were hurriedly sent to operational squadrons. Hillary, given the choice, chose No. 603, a Spitfire squadron in Scotland. During the Battle of Britian, the squadron was sent south into the thick of battle; shortly afterwards, Hillary was shot down and severely burned. Divided into two sections, the second half of the book details his ordeals as he recovers and undergoes reconstructive surgery. The Last Enemy is by no means propagandistic tripe; it is a sincere and timeless account of life disrupted by war, and therefore a very rewarding read.

This Battle of Britain pilot has left us with a real gem; a classically engaging description of his experience of training, being shot down, and his amazing recovery.

One thing that makes this work great, and enables it to stand above other similar books, is Hillary's ability to describe his emotions; to explain his thoughts at the time, and those of his colleagues.

This book puts things into perspective - it is the memoir of a true hero.

Hillary tries to make light of his torments and the losses of his friends. They knew war was inevitable but faced it with amazing fortitude. Beats all those gung ho American attitudes about why people go to war. Their response was sadness rather than anger.

He tries not to preach but must have known this would be a testament to his friends. I was idly re-reading the first chapter this morning and wondering whatever happened to his friends who may have survived, only to find out that a biography of Hillary is being released in May this year.

A remarkable personal narrative of a member of the "Lost Generation" finding some purpose for his life in war. It's tired and cliched now to talk about "the just war" or "The Good War" but this book gives flesh and bone to the whole idea. Hillary -- who would probably have become a notable write had he survived the war -- is an unusually articulate narrator, and he goes from youthful cynicism and selfishness to a profound understanding of the purpose of humanity as he loses friends and undergoes painful reconstructive surgery. At times, the book brings the Blitz, the Battle of Britain, and Britain in the late thirties and early forties to life in a way no restrospective history could hope to do.

If you liked this book, then you can read about Hillary in Sebastian Faulks' "The Fatal Englishman".

A friend who had just completed my novel, Chancey on Top gave me a copy of this book, saying that it might give me another perspective on England, and that, in event, I would be sure to enjoy the read. How right he was, though, to be honest, "enjoy" might not be the right word. The writing is always a first rate, and the story is by turns heroic, tragic, and transforming. It captures, better that any other book I have ever read -- or movie I have ever seen -- the ethos of England during World War II. Bravo to the complex man who dared to share his truth, and reveal his intellectual, emotional, and spiritual journey.

Excellent read about the experiences of one of "The Few" who flew in defense of Great Britain during the summer of 1940's "Battle of Britain". Another cross referenced book I recommend is "The Fatal Englishmen" by Sebastian Faulkes who devotes 1/3 of his book to much more background behind the person, Oxford student, bon vivant ... who became best known as Richard Hillary the Spitfire pilot and author of the "Last Enemy".