Fighter Boys: The Battle of Britain, 1940

For 123 days in the summer of 1940, 3,000 youthful airmen in the Royal Air Force fought back against Hitler’s advancing forces with a  heroism that astonished the world. Drawing on interviews with scores of surviving pilots as well as diaries and letters never before seen, military historian and journalist Patrick Bishop re-creates with astonishing intimacy and clarity this excruciating, exhilarating war of nerves. In their own words, the pilots describe what it was like to bale out from a stricken plane, to go into battle in the face of overwhelming odds, to hear the screams of a comrade as he went down in flames. With a riveting, taut narrative, Fighter Boys relates how those young heroes changed the course of World War II—and the history of the modern world.

For 123 days in the summer of 1940, 3,000 youthful airmen in the Royal Air Force fought back against Hitler's advancing forces with a heroism that astonished the world. Drawing on interviews with scores of surviving pilots as well as diaries and letters never before seen, military historian and journalist Patrick Bishop re-creates with astonishing intimacy and clarity this excruciating, exhilarating war of nerves. In their own words, the pilots describe what it was like to bale out from a stricken plane, to go into battle in the face of overwhelming odds, to hear the screams of a comrade as he went down in flames. With a riveting, taut narrative, Fighter Boys relates how those young heroes changed the course of World War II—and the history of the modern world.

Library Journal

In a sometimes painfully objective treatise, Bishop (Daily Telegraph; The Provisional IRA) narrates not only the Battle of Britain but also the development of the Royal Air Force from the mid-1930s until the war, complete with all the mistakes and misconceptions of training and strategy. To this he adds the perspective of the pilots themselves-through interviews, diaries, and letters-resulting in one of the first books to deal with the Battle of Britain without reflecting the glamour and romance of Allied propaganda. Bishop stresses that the pilots came from all classes of society, thus creating a meritocracy within the RAF, and he illuminates the role that the sergeant pilots played in the campaign. The intense training period is investigated, as is the air forces' role during the Battle for France, which precluded the terrific air campaign fought during the summer of 1940, when 3000 brave young men held off successive waves of attacking Luftwaffe fighters. The German viewpoint is also presented here, making Fighter Boys a well-rounded book. Recommended for all collections.-David Lee Poremba, Detroit P.L. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Patrick Bishop, associate editor at the Daily Telegraph (London), is the originator of the TV series The Irish Empire and the author of several highly acclaimed books on military history.