Battle of Britain Fighter Pilot Manual: As Used by Spitfire & Hurricane Pilots in 1940 - Softcover

Inhaltsangabe

• The forgotten 1940 RAF fighter pilot manual written by ‘the Few’. • Incredibly rare fighter pilot manual republished here for the first time since 1940. First published in 1940 and written by battle-hardened Spitfire and Hurricane ‘aces’ for rookie pilots, this manual gave succinct and hard-won advice on how to shoot down enemy aircraft and stay alive in the ‘target rich’ aerial environment over the south-east of England. These tactical instructions were accompanied by fabulous period cartoons drawn by the then RAF air gunner, William John Hooper. FROM THE MANUAL: • The advantage of height is half the battle • A three-second burst is normally sufficient to shoot a German down, so look behind you every three seconds • Many pilots shot down never saw the enemy fighter that got them. Originally published as ‘Forget-Me-Nots for Fighters’ this new edition is republished here for the first time since the Second World War. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: RAF Fighter Command was the organisation commanded by Hugh Dowding that ran the RAF’s fighter squadrons. Its headquarters was at Bentley Priory in Stanmore, Middlesex, now a museum of the RAF’s central role in the Battle of Britain. It was organised into four ‘groups’, each responsible for the aerial defence of a geographical region of Great Britain. ‘13 Group’ which produced this book in 1940, was the arm of the RAF’s Fighter Command responsible for protecting the airspace of the North of England, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Operational fighter pilots and training staff of 13 Group wrote and published this ‘how to’ book in 1940 for newly trained fighter pilots who were being thrust into the front line against Luftwaffe pilots well versed in the latest air combat techniques which the RAF were yet to teach formally. The fighter pilots who survived the summer of 1940 learnt their dogfighting tactics and aerial gunnery skills in the skies above England rather than in the classroom. Although 13 Group’s airspace were not at the centre of the Battle of Britain, squadrons who had been operating from London and the south east were rotated north to rest during the Battle, so the credentials of the unnamed authors are impeccable. William John ‘Bill’ Hooper, who drew the cartoons, become well known later in the war as co-creator of comic character, Pilot Officer Percy Prune, whose mishaps were used to educate pilots in the pages of the monthly Air Ministry training magazine, Tee Emm.

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