Customer Reviews

Piece of Cake (Cassell Military Paperbacks)

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Piece of Cake is much more than just a very well written war novel - which it is. In Piece of Cake, aviation author Derek Robinson uses the small group genre by focuses on the notional "Hornet squadron" as a means to bring to light many of the Royal Air Force's doctrinal, equipment and personnel deficiencies in the first year of the Second War. Piece of Cake is also a darn good examination of character and leadership - or lack of - in warfare. Typically, "the few" who flew for Britain in 1939-1941 are presented as an exemplary elite, who sacrificed themselves for the greater good. In Piece of Cake, Robinson may have angered those who favored such a hallowed historiography, but he gives the reader a greater insight into what was probably much closer to the actual mark in Fighter Command in this early phase of the war. Indeed, it would be fair to rank Piece of Cake among the best war novels ever written.

Robinson's plot line follows the notional Hornet Squadron from 1 September 1939 to 15 September 1940, and the unit is equipped with Hurricane I and II fighters (not Spitfires, as in the film version). The reader is presented with three different leadership styles in the squadron leaders: the self-destructive style of Ramsey, the arrogant style of Rex and the fatalistic style of "Fanny" Barton. The squadron adjutant "Uncle" Kellaway and the intelligence officer "Skull" Skelton also add considerable depth on the human and scientific sides of warfare. The pilots themselves are a pretty stock bunch, as they are in most Robinson novels, with the exceptions of the sociopath "Moggy" Cattermole and the American, Chris Hart. Indeed, one of the major differences between the book and the film is the relationship between "Moggy" and Squadron Leader Rex, which is never explained in the film. In the book, Robinson paints "Moggy" in the role of the "squadron enforcer," who is fiercely loyal to Rex due to perks provided. Indeed, "Moggy" even kills to protect Rex, which is odd for a character that displays no loyalty to anyone else in the squadron.

Robinson's portrayal of the RAF's inadequate tactics and doctrine is quite interesting. In particular, the large formation "fighting area attacks" put the RAF at a major disadvantage against the Luftwaffe's more fluid "finger four" tactics. Indeed, through A Piece of Cake, the reader is presented with a year's worth of tactical and doctrinal evolution in the RAF, with the initial faulty methods yielding grudgingly to more sensible means of waging air warfare. Robinson also seems to include every fighter pilot "lesson learned" in A Piece of Cake, which makes the novel virtually a primer for dog fighting (e.g. never climb away from the sun, don't always break left - the favored direction). Yet despite Hornet Squadron's tactical improvements, Robinson shows that survival in warfare still comes down to a certain matter of luck, as even the veteran pilots succumb to mistakes and fatigue. Few other accounts of the Battle of Britain demonstrate how punishing the August-September 1940 campaign was to RAF fighter squadrons as well as Robinson's fictional account.

Probably the only defect in A Piece Cake is the lack of perspective from the enemy side. In Robinson's later A Good Clean Fight, he does provide some insight from the enemy perspective, but this is lacking in A Piece of Cake. The number of squadron veteran pilots is ever dwindling in the face of the massed Luftwaffe attacks, but the results are uncertain given Skull's exposure of dubious pilot "kill" claims. In Robinson's novel, the reader is unsure who is actually winning the Battle of Britain (certainly the actual participants would have been uncertain at that moment, too), but it is suggested that the British are exaggerating their "kill" claims for propaganda purposes. Certainly in retrospect, the Battle of Britain seems more like a "goal line stand" than an outright victory, but Robinson's portrayal may strike some readers (armed with knowledge of the end result) as ambiguous or even defeatist in tone. Furthermore, the Luftwaffe also suffered from faulty doctrine (being designed as a tactical, not a strategic bombing force) and inadequate equipment (short-range Me-109s, the clumsy Me-110). If Robinson had provided a bit of enemy perspective, even with a captured pilot or two, this might have shown that the campaign was punishing and frustrating for both sides.

I rank this as one of the best books I've ever read and am very surprised more people aren't aware of it. The writing is top-notch: Robinson was at the top of his game when he wrote "Piece of Cake." The characters come to life, even if many of them don't stay alive very long. It is laugh-out-loud funny at times, slyly humorous at others, brutal, honest and thought-provoking -- often on one page. One must remember that Britain's "Knights of the Sky" averaged bout 19 years of age when The Battle was raging. They often behaved in a less-than-honorable fashion, as most 19 years usually do. Finally, anyone who ever entertained the notion that the air war was a "clean" way to fight will quickly have that notion dispelled. Dying in a burning Hurricane, taking cannon fire in the gut or waiting for the cold sea to steal all the warmth from your body are just a few of the ways an RAF pilot could die in the autumn of 1940. In spite of the controversy it generated, this book is a great tribute to the RAF's Few and a fine work of literature.

I read this book in 1993 when it came out. Having served for five years "in the ranks" of the RAF (1953-58) I was enthralled and enchanted by seeing so many of the people I had known, come to life. The feckless irresponsibility of the young pilot officers having races down mansion staircases seated on silver serving trays, the stubbornness of the Wing Commander who held tight formations no matter how fatal ... real people, real life.

Perhaps to American eyes there are aspects of the class interaction that may seem to be cariacatures, but they are not. The chap who attended a "good" public school (means "private school" in the U.S.) was accepted by his peers as a person "of station", and his foibles were viewed as the right of the privileged class. The poor erks (as we were known) were as far down the pecking order as it was possible to be, and only longed for a condescending glance of approval from those above us.

Living, lively, if you want to know what real war felt like, this book does it. You'll never forget "Baggy" and his unfortunate demise.

The Battle of Britain. Dashing, fearless young patriots out of Shakespeare take to their machines to save Albion from Nazi bombers. Battling hopeless odds and a vastly superior enemy, these lions of the sky prevail against evil, save democracy, and land back at base in time for their tea.

Or not.

Derek Robinson's "Piece of Cake" has to be one of the most brutally cynical, myth-debunking pieces of historical fiction ever put to pen. In its 650+ pages it methodically, and at times gleefully, ravages the heroic sterotype of Britain's fighter pilots cemented by the hundreds of books, movies, and documentaries which have come out since the war. In the language of the book, it puts paid to all that bumf and tells the truth --or rather, Robinson's version of it.

"Cake" is the story of Hornet Squadron, a rather average collection of fighter pilots flying Hurricanes, between September 1939 and September 1940. It details their involvement in the "phoney war," the Battle of France and lastly, the Battle of Britain. From the very first chapter, when a number of the pilots wreck their car while driving home drunk from a pub, then steal a tractor, and finally horses, to get back to their base, the reader begins to realize that we few, we happy few, we band of brothers, is nowhere to be found here. With the occasional exception, Hornet Squadron is a collection of snobbish, selfish, sophomoric, not-too-terribly bright adrenaline junkies who joined the RAF in the hopes of blowing things up without legal consequences. It's a case of be careful what you wish for, times two.

For a story with so many characters -- the squadron has more than a dozen, and chaps are always getting knocked off and replaced -- Robinson does a terrific job of keeping them all fresh and distinct from each other. Each reader will have his own favorite "good" guy -- goodhearted flight leader Fanny Barton, the cold-blooded American volunteer Christopher Hart ("CH3"), the crazy as a loon Flash Gordon, or possibly the non-fighting duo of "Uncle" Kellaway (the squadron adj) and his sidekick, an Oxford don turned intelligence officer "Skull" Skellen, who spend a lot of time arguing about squirrels. There is no question about the squadron's biggest bastard -- not since "GoodFellas" Joe Pesci/Tommy DeVito did I hate somebody as much as Lance "Moggy" Cattermole, the big, smooth-talking sociopath who seems to enjoy tormenting and using his squadron mates even more than he likes to machine-gun German pilots as they hang helpless in their parachutes. Robinson takes positive delight in showing how how Hart's theory that "up there the world is divided into bastards and suckers" also applies on terra firma.

"Piece of Cake" was a contraversial book not only for its thoroughly unglamorous depiction of the RAF jocks but because it expands on the touchy and undiscussed issue of the RAF's kill claims. The pilots, who in fairness can hardly be blamed for making mistakes given the nature of air combat prior to the installation of the gun camera, claimed about 2.5 German aircraft destroyed for every one that actually was. The vastly overstated statistics issued by the RAF made their way into the postwar literature and contributed to the mythos surrounding the battle. In point of fact, the Germans had about 900 fighters to the Brits 600, and the Me 109 was badly hampered by its extremely short range and the necessity to try and protect the bombers. The odds were somewhat closer than the Brits care to believe.

"Piece of Cake" wasn't written to disparage the courage of the British pilots or denigrate their accomplishments, but to show them for what they were -- young, often immature officer-boys of varying character who sometimes died stupid and futile deaths. In other words, human beings at war. In this sense, Robinson does the RAF a favor, for heroism is much more impressive when it comes from real people rather than Hollywood cartoons. After all, peacetime flaws often make for wartime virtues. Or as Hart says to Fanny Barton about Moggy: "He really does like killing people. You don't know how lucky you are to have him."

This is one of my favourite books ever, perhaps rivalled only by Robinson's other masterpiece, "Goshawk Squadron", both of which I have read and re-read again and again over the years. The writing is simple, subtle and brilliant, the dialogue sparking and witty, the atmosphere vivid.

Was this what life in the RAF was really like at the start of the Second World War? The author's unemotional writing carries with it a gritty and entirely convincing sense of reality; you cannot help think that this is really how it was.

From the opening sentence to the final full stop, Robinson delivers a tense and entertaining story whose characters spring to life from the pages. If many of his personae are necessarily only lightly sketched and interchangeable, others are multi-dimensional portraits that remind me forcefully of the kind of people I went to school with or suffered under as a pupil. (I served my time in a British Public School. By the 1960s we were living in 1890).

We meet Ramsey, headstrong and impatient, but he is in such a hurry that we have little time to get to know him. Fanny Barton, an athletic but uncertain New Zealander suffers from social insecurity and a nervous introspection that drives him to hasty and poorly considered decisions. Lord Rex is confident and breezy, but his aristocratic charm disguises an unpleasant ruthless arrogance, and sometimes callous cruelty. Despite his experience as a pilot in the First World War, the much older adjutant Kellaway comes from an earlier epoch, and ideas of gallantry are not completely erased. Skull Skelton, the intelligence officer, by contrast, sees the folly of war for what it is - and gains few friends from his outspoken views. Moggy Cattermole is thoroughly unlikeable from the beginning. When we meet him he has just stolen a giant gollywog from someone by punching him in the eye. As the story progresses his unusually ugly character is slowly revealed to the reader. By contrast, Chris Hart III is an upright, cynical, war-weary American, viewed by some as an unwelcome colonial intrusion into a thoroughly British war.

On the ground, Robinson evokes the colours and scents of wartime France and England, and mercilessly - but without fuss - shows us the muddle, misconceptions and incompetence of the administrative machinery of 1939 and 1940. He lets the reader see the unthinking class snobbery of the young pilots, making us reassess these otherwise often likeable individuals and realise that by upbringing they must in many cases have been blinkered and insufferable, arrogant self-anointed masters of the universe. But you cannot dislike these pilots. They live intensely and with gusto, and the reader is swept up into their funny, unscrupulous, devil-take-the-hindmost world where a quick turn of phrase and disregard for personal safety are badges of honour.

By the outbreak of the air war in 1940 the Spanish Civil War had convincingly demonstrated that large formations of fighters were horribly vulnerable to attacks from an enemy using more flexible tactics. The RAF ignored the lesson that the Luftwaffe had taught the Spanish Republican Air Force and stuck to the outmoded air gymkhana for no reason but doctrine. Robinson shows in this book how the RAF gradually came to accept that doctrine does not win air battles.

In the air, Robinson immerses us in a vast and frightening arena of battle. His descriptions of flying a Hurricane are so well executed that the reader can almost feel the vibration of the airframe and smell the hot oil and hear the exhilarating roar from the Merlin engine. In some books you can predict which character will live and which die; in this book you get the feeling that you had better not get too attached to any of the jaunty, interesting individuals that inhabit its pages. Death is as unexpected and final here as it must have been to the young men and women who saw these events at first hand. Robinson delivers battle in the air with a mastery that leaves the reader shocked and shaken as death scythes in from below, from behind, from nowhere, in an abrupt shuddering blur from the empty sky.

I have read many war novels. "Piece of Cake" has few rivals.

I've just re-read Piece of Cake as part of my holiday, read-for-pleasure, schedule and thus rediscovered this outstanding example of fiction. Robinson is to WWII RAF what O'Brien is to the Nelsonian Navy --and much more. His characters, occasionally a wee bit overdone, are mostly believable. Dialogue is witty, lively and brilliantly written. The story is masterfully threaded and the period characterization has that distinctive feel of "that's what it really must have been like". Aviation/air-war buffs will enjoy the flying scenes. WWII aficionados will experience the "phoney war" and its dramatic continuation. And litterary purists will be able to indulge in a page-turner without feelings of guilt. The book is about planes, war, the recklessness of youth and the drama of death, but with enough realism to weed-out stereotypes and bland storytelling. But above all it's a masterfully constructed tapestry of characters, sub-plots and descriptions. With all of it put together Piece of Cake is a book one can watch, as its pages come alive in the mind's eye.

This masterful piece of storytelling captures the essence of the thrilling and tragic (and very often too short) lives of fighter pilots during the air battles over Britain and France. The detailed sketches of the pilots are brilliantly done, displaying their skill and courage, as well more than a few warts. As a retired U.S. Navy pilot who served two years in a British Royal Navy squadron, the portrayals of class snobbery and an openly condescending attitude toward "colonials" rang remarkably true. Also accurately portrayed was the intense, fun-loving comeraderie of squadronmates, despite their personal differences and tensions. Perhaps the finest achievement of this excellent work is its ability to convey the pilot's love of flying and their undying affection for their aircraft, even as they watched their mates die, one after another, in those elegant and lethal Spitfires. This is a marvleous story, superbly told, and all the more believable because of the human frailties of its characters. Don't miss this one!

A fast moving account of life and death in a WWII RAF Fighter Squadron. The author puts you in the cockpit with the characters. Great look at English euphemisms and life style. One of the better WW II novels with historic reference.

"Piece of Cake" is, with no exception, the most fantastic book about WWII air wars, period. The characters are believable, revealing, and enlightening ( and oh-so human). The historical world flows through the story seamlessly. Robinson's knowledge of military hardware is at least formidable. He also knows tactics. He must have flown- the insights are searing. And sometimes, his prose becomes golden.

I remember a few moons ago (about 20 years ago really) seeing something about the mini-series Piece of Cake and not being able to watch it (sorry, to poor to afford it then) and being a little interested in aviation warfare I decided I'd have to read it at some point. After spending sometime looking about and finally deciding to deal in the second hand market I picked up a copy of Piece of Cake.

Piece of Cake describes a British squadron (Hornet Squadron, flying Hurricanes for those that are interested) in the early days of WWII (September 1939 thru September 1940). Mr. Robinson uses the cloak of early WWII (historical setting and British tactics) to tell the story and interactions of the men of Hornet Squadron. All of the characters are larger than life, at times making them a little hard to believe, but having known many fighter pilots in my day I can say that the only possibly making it difficult to believe is having all of these "characters" in one unit. Each character is nicely done, with personal details that are amazing, whether its Moggy and his egocentric/homicidal ways, CH3 and his this is the way it was done in Spain, "Lord" Rex is proper British, to "Fanny" Barton and his caring ways. The exploits are fascinating, there's some interesting romance situations, especially given the Phony War and the lead up to the Battle for France. The historical perspective is nicely done with Mr. Robinson showing good awareness of RAF tactics and battle situations. If there's a weakness in the book it's that Mr. Robinson's dark humor sometimes overshadows thing to much and he overemphasis the inflated claims of the RAF during the Battle of Britain and their losses.

Rating wise this ones a very solid 4 star book. The first half is a little slow and drawn out as Mr. Robinson explains Hornet Squadron's makeup and things begin to gel. As you pass from the Phony War to the Battle for France there's a nice step up in the story that pushes the book toward 4.5 stars. This is eventually reached during the Battle of Britain with a momentary 5 star piece with the interactions between Moggy and Steel-Stebbing (you need to read it, great for a laugh). Given everything, a solid 4 star performance.