A Yankee Flier With the R.A.F.

A Yankee Flier #1

by Al Avery, Paul Laune (Illustrator)

Swing music was blaring from the radio set in the mess when Stan Wilson entered. His blue eyes, which gleamed with a great zest for living, gazed levelly around the room. There was a look in them which had been born of penetrating the blue depths of Colorado canyons and, later on, at the limitless spaces a flier sees. As usual, a half-smile, seemingly directed at himself, played at the corners of his mouth. There was seldom a moment so danger-filled.

214 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1941

About the author

Pseudonym of Rutherford G. Montgomery

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Today's kids can play interactive games online or fire up the X-Box to experience the thrill of flight. But before the advent of electronic gadgets many youngsters got their aviation thrills from books like this one. This is one of nine books published on the "Yankee Flier." Many of these books were written around WWII as way of getting young people interested about this war. What better way than to put you in the cockpit of a Spitfire. These were pulse quickening stories of a fearless airmen who take on the Nazi airmen with their Spitfires to save the United Kingdom in the Battle of Britian. Superhero American Stan Wilson joins the RAF before America was involved in WWII. He helps defend the United Kingdom against large-scale attacks by Nazi Germany's air force, the Luftwaffe. Thrilling aerial dogfights made for a great adventure story. Nothing like words in a book that can you give you that high. Highly recommend this one.

[Joseph Feldstein · Rating 2 out of 5]

First read at age 8, from a hand me down copy originally printed in 1944 on yellowed wartime paper stock. Childish, heroic adventure story romanticizing WW II. For some reason, my younger self identified with the Irish pilot who loved to eat pie. To this day I still think of that character as the origin of my own love affair with pie.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid fun. A book for boys with a ton of combat.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Boys' Book(s) from the start of World War II. Echoing similar series from WWI; in fact the inside covers of some printings show WWI biplanes.

Easy reading. No real plot complications. A lot of action scenes; hard to believe our boys survived so many books so full of wartime dogfights. In reality the life of a fighter pilot was short.

Fun characters:
“O'Malley looked at the pie counter but shook his head. Five pies in one afternoon might spoil his dinner and he planned to enjoy a real feed.”

Accuracy: there's details we know are wrong. Actually the author read extensively to get it as right as possible. But there was a war on and many published details were deliberately misleading. "..with the RAF" starts with a test pilot for Hendee and their new Hawk. This is based on the hush-hush P-47 Thunderbolt, but only as far as had been revealed in 1941. Sometimes he "kicks" the throttle (airplanes use hand-throttles). In "..Italy" they fly the de Havilland Mosquito, which really had two V-12 engines, but here it has radials and at one point, only one engine. The Mosquito was indeed too fast to catch and was often armed as the book says. However he puts way too many people aboard for the rescue scene.

Facts aside, the stories are well-told. The author wrote a lot of western adventures, as well as aviation books and spy stories.

A very fun read and re-read from my childhood.

[Mike Glaser · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable trip down memory lane. I read most of this series a long time ago at my grandparents and the books had been printed up during the war, WW II. Because of the wartime restrictions, the paper used in the book was very cheap and you had to be extremely careful when you turned the pages as it was brittle and would crumble if you did not handle it properly. The stories are kind of hookum but enjoyable enough if you look past the very fantastic parts.

[Sid · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book is really great! it has lots of action and I didn't want to stop reading it.

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book in my younger days, recently re-read it and a couple others in the series. Still love them. WWII Air Combat fiction.

[Todd Hummel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read these as a boy, over and over again! Great action!

[George · Rating 3 out of 5]

Still remember this from when I was very young

[Denny]

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