The true-life stories of some of the century’s most courageous fliers make for fascinating reading.
By Michael D. Hull
Spitfire pilot Robert Stanford Tuck picked up Hornchurch control and followed its directions. As he crossed the English Channel coast, he could see a tangled mass of vapor trails and tiny glints of metal far to the north and high up. Then he made out the hurtling, weaving fighters–mere dots, flitting in and out of sight, like dust motes in the sun’s rays.
He advanced his throttle through the gate into emergency power and climbed frantically to join the fray. Soon he could distinguish Messerschmitt Me-109s, Hawker Hurricanes, Supermarine Spitfires, Messerschmitt Me-110 bombers and a few Junkers Ju-88 bombers.
It was the biggest fight Tuck had yet seen–an awe-inspiring spectacle that made his throat tighten and produced an odd, damp feeling in his temples and wrists. Within seconds, he found himself engaging a pair of Ju-88s that were heading for home at sea level. He managed to shoot them down, but then he realized that his Spitfire was crippled and spewing oil.
Spitfires were notoriously allergic to ditching, so Tuck struggled to get his fighter back over land. After passing over Beachy Head, the plane started smoking and burst into flames. Tuck bailed out and made an awkward landing in a field near the Kent estate of Lord Cornwallis. He wrenched his leg and was severely winded by the fall, but he was alive. The blazing Spitfire crashed a few hundred yards away, in the open country.
An estate wagon took the flier to the house, where Cornwallis had prepared a bed and called his personal doctor. Tuck had a bath, leaving a thick coat of oil on his lordship’s tub, and then hobbled downstairs to join the family for tea. After the pilot had slept deeply for three hours, his host’s son drove him to the Biggin Hill airfield, where a spare Spitfire was available.
“Drop in for a bath any time, m’boy,” his lordship had said as they parted.
Fighting in the Battle of Britain in August and September 1940, the greatest aerial conflict in history, Bob Tuck managed to shoot down 29 German planes before he was himself downed over occupied Europe. He spent the rest of the war as a guest of the Germans.
Tuck’s story (see P. 42 for a related feature) is one of 26 dramatic accounts of aerial combat–from World War I to Vietnam–that unfolds in Stephen Coonts’ riveting and highly entertaining collection War in the Air (Pocket Books, New York, 1996, $24). This well-researched book will keep every aviation enthusiast on the edge of his seat.
A decorated Navy carrier pilot and the author of several best-selling aviation novels, Coonts has brought his narrative skills to bear on the true-life stories of some of the century’s most courageous fliers–British, American, German and Japanese. From SE-5 biplanes to F-4 Phantoms, from the skies of Europe to the Mediterranean, the Pacific and Southeast Asia, this is a vivid record of war in the air and the daring young men who flew by the seats of their pants. Coonts presents a collective and authentic epic of bold hearts, raw nerve, triumph and sometimes tragedy.
It is a book about men rather than airplanes. The famous fliers who soar through these pages include Reggie Warneford of the Royal Navy, who won the Victoria Cross for downing a zeppelin in 1915; James McCudden of the Royal Flying Corps, who shot down 57 German planes; Edward V. Rickenbacker, America’s leading ace of World War I; Alan C. Deere and Ginger Lacey, who helped preserve Western freedom in the skies over southeastern England in the furious summer of 1940; Ted W. Lawson of the famous Doolittle raid on Tokyo in 1942; Robert L. Scott, Jr., of the “Flying Tigers”; Gregory “Pappy” Boyington of the Guadalcanal “Black Sheep” Squadron; Adolf Galland, the gallant Luftwaffe ace; Erich Hartmann, the greatest ace of all, who shot down 352 Allied planes; and Steve Ritchie, destined to become America’s last air ace in the skies over North Vietnam.
As Coonts–a decorated Navy attack pilot during the Vietnam War–says, the stories embody the very core of human values: faith, courage, perseverance, loyalty, trust. This is a rousing aviation history, meant to be read again and again.
