Spitfire Ace of Aces

[John Beaman]

Has anyone seen/read this book? Is it worth getting?

TIA

[Jukka Juutinen]

Who is the author? Publisher? A quick search did not result in any hits for a book with precisely that name...

[Jim Oxley]

Dilip Sarkar. Here's a link:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Spitfire-Ace...2484595&sr=1-1

[Jukka Juutinen]

Darn, I missed that one! Those reviews sound promising, though with amazon "reviewers" one has to be ultra careful...

[John Beaman]

Originally Posted by Jukka Juutinen

Darn, I missed that one! Those reviews sound promising, though with amazon "reviewers" one has to be ultra careful...

Yes, you do have to be careful!

[Jim Oxley]

Originally Posted by Jukka Juutinen

Darn, I missed that one! Those reviews sound promising, though with amazon "reviewers" one has to be ultra careful...

True, but Dilip certainly knows his subject. Has a long line of well-received books on the RAF (and the Battle Of Britain in particular) to his credit.

[Frank Olynyk]

Dilip Sarkar has written three books on Johnnie Johnson. The first two were a pair: Johnnie Johnson: Spitfire Top Gun, Part One and Part Two. Part One was published in 2002 by Ramrod Publications; Part Two was published in 2005 by Victory Books. Spitfire Ace of Aces, published last year by Amberley, is 312 pages long; Part One is 211 pages, Part Two is 234 pages. The page size of Ace of Aces is slightly larger than that of the other two books. Ace of Aces is basically a combined edition of Spitfire Top Gun, with some material deleted. In particular the photographs have been pruned back to those directly related to Johnson; page 172 of Top Gun Part Two has a photo of Chris LeRoux, and page 173 a photo of an overturned Tiger tank -- both gone. The text of Ace of Aces is usually exactly that of the two Top Gun books. Part Two ends in August 1944 when Johnson left operations; Ace of Aces has an additional chapter "Conclusion" 'A Marvelous Life'".

Conclusion: if you don't have the two volumes of Spitfire Top Gun, you will probably want Ace of Aces. I of course am a completist, so I have all three books. And no shelf space.

Enjoy!

Frank.

[Jukka Juutinen]

Originally Posted by Jim Oxley

True, but Dilip certainly knows his subject. Has a long line of well-received books on the RAF (and the Battle Of Britain in particular) to his credit.

Yep, I forgot to emphasize the latter issue...

[John Beaman]

Thanks for all the comments. Looks like I'll have to order the book. Wing Leader was one of the first "war" books I ever read. Maybe Ace of Aces will explain why he made no claims for the last 7 months of the war?

[Mysticpuma]

Sorry to raise a thread from long ago, but I have just finished reading this book and to be honest I found it disappointing as a book to learn about Johnson the man. Reading through it my personal opinion was that it was very clinical and factual (obviously good!) but this outweighed the side that I was hoping would reveal more about who he really was, what motivated him, what his feeling were about the whole of the war, what his family thought of his escapades, etc, etc.

As I said, as a factual book it details in a very deliberate fashion events around the missions he flew but ultimately I didn't really feel I got to know much more about the 'Ace of Aces' other than what a statistician may offer, rather than a biographer?

Cheers, MP