The War In The Air 1939-1945: An Anthology Of Personal Experience

Freedom's Battle #2

by Gavin Lyall

From the brilliant summer nonchalance of 1940 to the grim, anonymous exhaustion of the bomber crews delivering the infernos of Hamburg and Dresden. All the great dramas of the air war are here, described by the men in the British and Commonwealth Air Forces who did the fighting. We accompany them in the desperate days of the fall of France; during the Battle of Britain; throughout the agony of Bomber Command; over the high seas, Malta, the desert battles and in the struggle with Japan.

This is the second volume in the unique Freedom's Battle trilogy, which provides intensely vivid accounts of war at sea, in the air and on land. Far better than any single narrative, the extracts build up a complete picture of the War as it was experienced by the men and women who actually took part in it.

Genres: Aviation, History

422 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

Gavin was born and educated in Birmingham. For two years he served as a RAF pilot before going up to Cambridge, where he edited Varsity, the university newspaper. After working for Picture Post, the Sunday Graphic and the BBC, he began his first novel, The Wrong Side of the Sky, published in 1961. After four years as Air Correspondent to the Sunday Times, he resigned to write books full time. He was married to the well-known journalist Katherine Whitehorn and they lived in London with their children.

Lyall won the British Crime Writers' Association's Silver Dagger award in both 1964 and 1965. In 1966-67 he was Chairman of the British Crime Writers Association. He was not a prolific author, attributing his slow pace to obsession with technical accuracy. According to a British newspaper, “he spent many nights in his kitchen at Primrose Hill, north London, experimenting to see if one could, in fact, cast bullets from lead melted in a saucepan, or whether the muzzle flash of a revolver fired across a saucer of petrol really would ignite a fire”.

He eventually published the results of his research in a series of pamphlets for the Crime Writers' Association in the 1970s. Lyall signed a contract in 1964 by the investments group Booker similar to one they had signed with Ian Fleming. In return for a lump payment of £25,000 and an annual salary, they and Lyall subsequently split his royalties, 51-49.

Up to the publication in 1975 of Judas Country, Lyall's work falls into two groups. The aviation thrillers (The Wrong Side Of The Sky, The Most Dangerous Game, Shooting Script, and Judas Country), and what might be called "Euro-thrillers" revolving around international crime in Europe (Midnight Plus One, Venus With Pistol, and Blame The Dead).

All these books were written in the first person, with a sardonic style reminiscent of the "hard-boiled private-eye" genre. Despite the commercial success of his work, Lyall began to feel that he was falling into a predictable pattern, and abandoned both his earlier genres, and the first-person narrative, for his “Harry Maxim" series of espionage thrillers beginning with The Secret Servant published in 1980. This book, originally developed for a proposed BBC TV Series, featured Major Harry Maxim, an SAS officer assigned as a security adviser to 10 Downing Street, and was followed by three sequels with the same central cast of characters.

In the 1990s Lyall changed literary direction once again, and wrote four semi-historical thrillers about the fledgling British secret service in the years leading up to World War I.

Gavin Lyall died of cancer in 2003.

Reviews

[Alice · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Gavin Lyall's aviation fiction, and I'd been on the lookout for this collection for some time. Accounts from all fronts and both sides, in chronological order and with notes by Lyall, give a broad view of the air war.

[Karl Schaeffer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book came to me from my second son via a convoluted path. A collection of vignettes arranged in chronological order that describes the actions of the RAF during World War II from Dunkirk to VE day. Mostly stories about the European Theatre, with some about North Africa and the Pacific. Some in 1st person, some official account. Some clever and entertaining, some funny, some detailing the human condition, some filled with the horror of war. This was a good book to read after seeing the movie "Dunkirk". I enjoyed the flying scenes in Dunkirk, but I learned from the book, that smoothly ditching a Spitfire was almost an impossibility. The large radiators under the wing roots would catch water right away and the plane would break-up. if the pilot attempted to drag the tail first into the water and avoid having the radiators act as a big scoop and water brake, the plane would tend to flip upside down into the water due it being nose heavy. I enjoyed it.

[Lea · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book needs to have wayyy more reviews - it is absolutely excellent!