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Biggles #46
Biggles of the Special Air Police
Biggles of the Special Air Police
183 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 1953
3 people are currently reading
74 people want to read
About the author
W.E. Johns
613 books113 followersInvariably known as Captain W.E. Johns, William Earl Johns was born in Bengeo, Hertfordshire, England. He was the son of Richard Eastman Johns, a tailor, and Elizabeth Johns (née Earl), the daughter of a master butcher. He had a younger brother, Russell Ernest Johns, who was born on 24 October 1895.
He went to Hertford Grammar School where he was no great scholar but he did develop into a crack shot with a rifle. This fired his early ambition to be a soldier. He also attended evening classes at the local art school.
In the summer of 1907 he was apprenticed to a county municipal surveyor where he remained for four years and then in 1912 he became a sanitary inspector in Swaffham, Norfolk. Soon after taking up this appointment, his father died of tuberculosis at the age of 47.
On 6 October 1914 he married Maude Penelope Hunt (1882–1961), the daughter of the Reverend John Hunt, the vicar at Little Dunham in Norfolk. The couple had one son, William Earl Carmichael Johns, who was born in March 1916.
With war looming he joined the Territorial Army as a Private in the King's Own Royal Regiment (Norfolk Yeomanry), a cavalry regiment. In August 1914 his regiment was mobilised and was in training and on home defence duties until September 1915 when they received embarkation orders for duty overseas.
He fought at Gallipoli and in the Suez Canal area and, after moving to the Machine gun Corps, he took part in the spring offensive in Salonika in April 1917. He contracted malaria and whilst in hospital he put in for a transfer to the Royal Flying Corps and on 26 September 1917, he was given a temporary commission as a Second Lieutenant and posted back to England to learn to fly, which he did at No. 1 School of Aeronautics at Reading, where he was taught by a Captain Ashton.
He was posted to No. 25 Flying Training School at Thetford where he had a charmed existence, once writing off three planes in three days. He moved to Yorkshire and was then posted to France and while on a bombing raid to Mannheim his plane was shot down and he was wounded. Captured by the Germans, he later escaped before being reincarcerated where he remained until the war ended.
He went to Hertford Grammar School where he was no great scholar but he did develop into a crack shot with a rifle. This fired his early ambition to be a soldier. He also attended evening classes at the local art school.
In the summer of 1907 he was apprenticed to a county municipal surveyor where he remained for four years and then in 1912 he became a sanitary inspector in Swaffham, Norfolk. Soon after taking up this appointment, his father died of tuberculosis at the age of 47.
On 6 October 1914 he married Maude Penelope Hunt (1882–1961), the daughter of the Reverend John Hunt, the vicar at Little Dunham in Norfolk. The couple had one son, William Earl Carmichael Johns, who was born in March 1916.
With war looming he joined the Territorial Army as a Private in the King's Own Royal Regiment (Norfolk Yeomanry), a cavalry regiment. In August 1914 his regiment was mobilised and was in training and on home defence duties until September 1915 when they received embarkation orders for duty overseas.
He fought at Gallipoli and in the Suez Canal area and, after moving to the Machine gun Corps, he took part in the spring offensive in Salonika in April 1917. He contracted malaria and whilst in hospital he put in for a transfer to the Royal Flying Corps and on 26 September 1917, he was given a temporary commission as a Second Lieutenant and posted back to England to learn to fly, which he did at No. 1 School of Aeronautics at Reading, where he was taught by a Captain Ashton.
He was posted to No. 25 Flying Training School at Thetford where he had a charmed existence, once writing off three planes in three days. He moved to Yorkshire and was then posted to France and while on a bombing raid to Mannheim his plane was shot down and he was wounded. Captured by the Germans, he later escaped before being reincarcerated where he remained until the war ended.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
June 28, 2025
'Upon what happened there would their own actions depend.’ (p67) – from ‘The Case of the Too Successful Company’
This sentence caught my fancy. It is unusual but not unique in Johns’ writing. He employed odd construction reasonably regularly to show he could do it and I suggest also to amuse himself. It’s possible he might have even read Elizabeth Bowen, the doyen of this sort of style. Perhaps. It certainly would have been easier to say: ‘Their actions would depend on what happened there.’ But not so interesting.
This curious book is a lesser Biggles effort, comprising two remarkably contrasting halves: the first half are the titular Special Air Police stories done in the Arthur Conan Doyle style, ‘The Case of…’ The second half is a clutch of wartime adventures drawn entirely from Biggles The Camels Are Coming, the first Biggles book, published in 1932, with Biggles flying his Sopwith Camel, a la Snoopy. As Johns comments in his introduction to these tales, they were long out of print.
The Special Air Police stories usually kick off at the request of Biggles perennial boss, Air Commodore Raymond. I don’t think he ever changed substantive rank, he was a Colonel in World War One, and I’m pretty sure we never learn his first name, the man with the box of cigarettes on his desk. Raymond has Biggles and the boys flying about solving crimes of smuggling (the most risible of which involves hot air balloons and French poodles), thievery (jewellery), they go off to West Africa to deal with Marco the tame white lion and to China to retrieve buried treasure, in the national (British) interest. The best of this group has Thea Hertz, a vengeful Teutonic film star who eyes off Biggles: ‘he came under the scrutiny of a pair of ice-blue eyes that seemed to appraise him with unnecessary candour.’ (p12) She is flying an ME109 and attempts to shoot down Biggles. Except this is a film production after the war is over. The fact that Biggles is flying his Spitfire without live ammunition replicates his predicament in the Camel story The Ace of Spades.
This leads me to the observe that Biggles wartime adventures are superior to the peacetime stories, with the notable exception of the air detective novels set immediately after World War Two, all of which have strong World War Two element as Biggles foes are almost always former Axis fighters.
The Camel stories are genuinely exciting, full of dog fights, there is a special sortie to retrieve secret plans from a rabbit burrow behind enemy lines, ingenuous maneuvers to combat Bosch aces and my favourite, a competition between a Camel and an SE5 to see which pilot can bring down a barrage balloon, all for the sake of some bottles of lemonade, staked by Colonel Raymond, of course. Only in a Biggles book. Biggles is very young here, still a teenager: impetuous, excitable and prone to flashes of anger, yet already equipped with a steely resolve and his admirable moral code.
A generous three stars, but three stars nevertheless.
This sentence caught my fancy. It is unusual but not unique in Johns’ writing. He employed odd construction reasonably regularly to show he could do it and I suggest also to amuse himself. It’s possible he might have even read Elizabeth Bowen, the doyen of this sort of style. Perhaps. It certainly would have been easier to say: ‘Their actions would depend on what happened there.’ But not so interesting.
This curious book is a lesser Biggles effort, comprising two remarkably contrasting halves: the first half are the titular Special Air Police stories done in the Arthur Conan Doyle style, ‘The Case of…’ The second half is a clutch of wartime adventures drawn entirely from Biggles The Camels Are Coming, the first Biggles book, published in 1932, with Biggles flying his Sopwith Camel, a la Snoopy. As Johns comments in his introduction to these tales, they were long out of print.
The Special Air Police stories usually kick off at the request of Biggles perennial boss, Air Commodore Raymond. I don’t think he ever changed substantive rank, he was a Colonel in World War One, and I’m pretty sure we never learn his first name, the man with the box of cigarettes on his desk. Raymond has Biggles and the boys flying about solving crimes of smuggling (the most risible of which involves hot air balloons and French poodles), thievery (jewellery), they go off to West Africa to deal with Marco the tame white lion and to China to retrieve buried treasure, in the national (British) interest. The best of this group has Thea Hertz, a vengeful Teutonic film star who eyes off Biggles: ‘he came under the scrutiny of a pair of ice-blue eyes that seemed to appraise him with unnecessary candour.’ (p12) She is flying an ME109 and attempts to shoot down Biggles. Except this is a film production after the war is over. The fact that Biggles is flying his Spitfire without live ammunition replicates his predicament in the Camel story The Ace of Spades.
This leads me to the observe that Biggles wartime adventures are superior to the peacetime stories, with the notable exception of the air detective novels set immediately after World War Two, all of which have strong World War Two element as Biggles foes are almost always former Axis fighters.
The Camel stories are genuinely exciting, full of dog fights, there is a special sortie to retrieve secret plans from a rabbit burrow behind enemy lines, ingenuous maneuvers to combat Bosch aces and my favourite, a competition between a Camel and an SE5 to see which pilot can bring down a barrage balloon, all for the sake of some bottles of lemonade, staked by Colonel Raymond, of course. Only in a Biggles book. Biggles is very young here, still a teenager: impetuous, excitable and prone to flashes of anger, yet already equipped with a steely resolve and his admirable moral code.
A generous three stars, but three stars nevertheless.
May 25, 2021
First published in 1953, 'Biggles of the Special Air Police' is a collection of 14 short stories featuring Biggles and his colleagues. The stories fall into two sections - the first 7 are, as you might expect, simplistic mysteries featuring Biggles and his colleagues in their job as detectives with the fictional 'Air Police' section of Scotland Yard. The remaining 7 stories are early Biggles stories set in WW1 and are drawn from the 1932 collection 'The Camels are Coming'. The difference in writing style is noticeable - the early stories feature a much greater attention to detail, not surprising as the author was a WW1 aviator and was thus able to draw on personal knowledge. The later stories feature some some often bonkers plots and sloppy detail, and bend the rules of aviation somewhat. A fun read nevertheless.
August 29, 2025
Some average stories in the first half, followed by a bizarre yet nostalgic trip in a time machine to read some of Biggles' earliest adventures. I thought this was a bit of a cop-out at first, but the high adrenalin and seriousness of the early Biggles tales are a great read (one has come under a bit of editing - originally Biggles and Wilks had a competition over half a dozen bottles of whiskey, now it's lemonade - much lower stakes!) Still, I can't give this more than 3 stars.
February 21, 2013
This is very much a book of two halves, especially given it was my first Biggles book. The first half consisted of some short detective stories as Biggles solves some various mysteries as part of his job with the Special Air Police. Think Agatha Christie in planes. Not very inspiring.
But the second half of the book consists of a series of original Biggles stories from his WW1 days (I believe they were the first Biggles stories Capt. W E Johns ever wrote.)
These stories, telling of the dangerous days when pilots had no parachute and a less than 50% survival rate, are short, gripping and eye-opening. These really were the early days of flying and the stuff pilots got up to is amazing.
So worth the price of admission for the second half but don't know if I've become a die-hard fan.
But the second half of the book consists of a series of original Biggles stories from his WW1 days (I believe they were the first Biggles stories Capt. W E Johns ever wrote.)
These stories, telling of the dangerous days when pilots had no parachute and a less than 50% survival rate, are short, gripping and eye-opening. These really were the early days of flying and the stuff pilots got up to is amazing.
So worth the price of admission for the second half but don't know if I've become a die-hard fan.
April 30, 2023
Weer een boek met losse verhalen. Dit keer deels uit Biggles' tijd bij de luchtpolitie als tijdens de Eerste Wereldoorlog.
November 30, 2024
The first 60% or so of the book gives more stories of Biggles being a flyer working for the Scotland Yard solving mysteries and having adventures. The last 40% of the book contains some of Johns' early Biggles stories, where Biggles is flying in WWI. The difference in style between the two halves is quite noticeable, with the earlier written stories giving more detail and showing Biggles as more human, getting frightened, angry, and outraged at times.
July 9, 2021
Again, lots of short Biggles stories, entertaining as usual. The final say... quarter, is made up of stories from WW1 which were in one of the other book, however it was fun reading them again. I was delightfully surprised to find that the final short story was one from WW1 that I hadn't read before.
January 25, 2022
This wasn’t as enjoyable as the other Biggles short story collections I’ve read. There are some good plots, but can be hit and miss. There are also a few about Biggles in his war days.
February 3, 2025
4.2 Another Biggles comfort read. This on a mix of short stories. Seven post-war and seven from WWI which I had read before. An easy enjoyable read.
May 4, 2025
Definitely stories from another era. I can't say that I will be in a rush to read any more
December 22, 2025
I am reviewing the series as a whole, rather than the books individually
The Biggles series is great adventure fiction: we get high stakes, aerial action (in most of the books), and a hero who is endlessly loyal, competent, and calm under pressure.
I love the dogfights, recon missions, and wartime scenarios.
Where the series falls short is character depth. Some attitudes and simplifications reflect the period in which the books were written. There are very definitely dated elements, but considering the era the books were written - overall the series performs well. More than a few of the stories defy plausibility, but who doesn't love to curl up with a good adventure book or 10?
“Never say die.”
The Biggles series is great adventure fiction: we get high stakes, aerial action (in most of the books), and a hero who is endlessly loyal, competent, and calm under pressure.
I love the dogfights, recon missions, and wartime scenarios.
Where the series falls short is character depth. Some attitudes and simplifications reflect the period in which the books were written. There are very definitely dated elements, but considering the era the books were written - overall the series performs well. More than a few of the stories defy plausibility, but who doesn't love to curl up with a good adventure book or 10?
“Never say die.”
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews