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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Reviews with images
What a read. Amazing level of detail. If you want to learn sonething, this is for you!
So this is the first of six books I am reading about the Battle of Britain.The level of research that the author did in order to write this book is quite amazing. By taking snipets of the lives of those who were there, the author has been able to bring to life the thoughts, conditions and how the Fighter Boys felt.The author presents the information well, providing compelling testimony from all involved at that time.I grew up in awe of the pilots who flew the Spitfire and this just clarified what their lives were really like.The book conveys an amazing amount of information, I learnt a lot, and consider myself wiser for the read.On the downside, sometimes the author mentions too many people, causing the reader to get lost in the large amounts of information presented.Also there is the use of complicated wording at times, which I consider was not really necessary. The reader can be in a good flow and then get derailed by an overcomplicated use of words.The author was able to stay on point very well, only deviating a couple of times, when I found myself asking 'is this necessary to the point'? But these are very, very small issues in the big picture of things.If you really want to know how the Battle of Britain was fought, quoting people, numbers and strategies, then this is a book for you.
