"Wing Leader" -Best written Book on WWII fighter combat

[kaki3152]

My candidate for the best written book on WWII fighter combat would be "Wing Leader" by Johnny Johnson.

Full of lines like the following:

" When the 109s came in!They could see the beehive from a great distance , and the heavy flak bursts here and there accurately traced the pattern of our flight over France. So the advantage of surprise usually lay with the enemy and the first thing one knew of their presence was when they bored in with a fast,slanting attack from six o'clock high."

"Fom our cockpits we watched the burning Spitfire. We could do nothing except wait for the parachute to flare out and then pass an accurate fix to Tangmere for the rescue operation. But instead of using these few seconds to bale out the man inside suddenly panicked and screamed over the radio...[F]or a few shocked moments we listened to his dreadful mouthings. We were a lot of dirty bastards! It was our fault he was on fire!He was going to die!Alone. We would leave him.And not return. We...I came out of my stupor and flicked my transmitter switch to jam this creature's accusations"

"We tore down into a line astern attack and just before we closed to firing range I saw the leader of the enemy starboard section pull his Messerschmitt into a vertical climb. I knew this manouvre. The enemy pilot would half-roll at the top of his loop having gained vital altitude. He would then aileron turn his Messerschmitt and come down in fast dive looking for a Spitfire."

All of his narratives are 100% verifiable. The middle account deals with a combat on Feb 10,1943 with 610 Sq and the name of the officer who died cursing his squadron is readily available. The third incident is linked to the death of Sq Ldr Wally McLeod,Canadian ace on September 27.1944.

Comments, anyone?

[Juha]

Hello Kaki
In my youth I also thought that the Wing Leader was the best WWII fighter combat book, but then I read the Finnish edition of Das Tagebuch Hauptmann Helmut Lipfert and thought that it might, just might, have been even better. Nowadays I would say that the 4 best are, not in any particular order, those two and Eino “Eikka” Luukkanen’s memoirs, translated as Luukkanen, Eino. Fighter Over Finland: the Memoirs of a Fighter Pilot. London: Macdonald & Company Ltd.., 1963. (Reprinted 1980 by Arno Press, NY as ISBN 0-405-12191-1. and in 1989 by Time-Life, NY as ISBN 0-80949-620-8.) and Neville Duke’s War Diaries.

Juha

[Nick Beale]

I'd nominate "Night Fighter" by C F Rawnsley and Robert Wright.

[Oxby R]

I think I'd probably agree with you Nick. (but then I'd have to - wouldn't I ? chuckle ;-)