The Big Show by Pierre Clostermann
Published in 1951 and revised in 2006, Pierre Clostermann’s memoir of aerial combat was one of the first to emerge from WWII. Reflecting the perceptions of an extremely opinionated French volunteer in the RAF, The Big Show has been criticized for its unflattering portrayal of the U.S. Eighth Air Force, for some residual errors in names and events and above all for its author’s victory claims. It is ironic that Clostermann accused the American fliers of grossly overclaiming while at the same time exaggerating his own air-to-air victory tally (33, although RAF records only confirm a still-commendable 11) and those of his squadron mates (for example, 15 for Kenneth Charney of No. 602 Squadron, against an official RAF confirmation of six).
Those caveats aside, The Big Show still retains its place among aviation classics because few, if any, WWII narratives match Clostermann’s for putting the reader in the cockpit and realistically conveying the technical glitches, anxiety, exhilaration, terror and occasional ecstasy of combat. Describing his own reaction to downing a Focke-Wulf Fw-190A in July 1944, he writes:
The whole thing had hardly lasted a few seconds. Never before had I felt to the same extent the sudden panic that grips your throat after you have destroyed an enemy aircraft. All your pent-up energy is suddenly relaxed and the only feeling left is one of lassitude. Your confidence in yourself vanishes. The whole exhausting process of building your energy again, sharpening your concentration, of bracing your battered muscles, has to be started all over again. You would be glad to escape, you hurl your aircraft into the wildest maneuvers, as if all the German fighters in the entire Luftwaffe were banding together, and concentrating their threat exclu sively on you. Then the spark strikes again, the partnership of flesh and metal reforms.
As the war ended, Clostermann wrote: “The Big Show was over. The public had been satisfied.” After more than 60 years, any aviation buff who reads The Big Show still will be.
Originally published in the March 2010 issue of Aviation History. To subscribe, click here.
