FIGHTER PILOTS by Edward Sims

THE FIGHTER PILOTS 

by

EDWARD SIMMS

PUBLISHED ; CASSELL

FIRST EDITION 1967

The Second World War saw the zenith  of the fighter pilot. He was the last of  the individualists: whatever warfare  retained of the traditional chivalry and  glamour of single combat devolved  upon him. Some of the pilots them-  selves, like Richard Hillary, saw a  mystical, near-religious quality in their  lives and deaths, and never more so  than in the Battle of Britain, which has  been given the trappings of an Arthurian  legend, a medieval crusade. Many of  them became national heroes, while as  a body they exercised an influence upon  the course of the war quite out of  proportion to their numbers. Yet, little  attempt has been made to assess their  contribution accurately in terms of  statistics or of proven achievement. The  figures quoted at the time, based largely  on the evidence of the pilots concerned,  have never been officially confirmed or  corrected; and the whole picture of the  fighter pilots’ war has remained vague  and contradictory.  For the purposes of this comparative  study, the author has analysed the  performances of the fighter arms of the  Royal Air Force, the Luftwaffe and  the United States Army Air Force in  Western Europe, in North Africa and  in Eastern Europe. He has examined in  detail the true odds as between, for  example, the R.A.F. and the Luftwaffe  in the Battle of Britain. He explains  how and why the German pilots so  enormously outscored their Allied  opponents, and what the effective value  of a legendary figure like Hans-Joachim  Marseille was to his country’s war  effort. To bring these points home to  the reader, and to show how different  conditions were on the Western Front,  where Johnny Johnson led the Allied  scorers with 38 victories, and the Eastern‘ where Hartmann claimed his fantastic 352, Mr Sims has analysed in  depth sorties flown by these two pilots,  Marseille, Douglas Bader, and others.    Edward Sims, him self a former fighter  pilot, has devoted years of research to  the preparation of this book. From  squadron records, interviews with the  principal participants and authorities  and many other sources, he has con-  structed a most important — and  controversial — record of this most  celebrated, most glamourized and least  understood aspect of the war.  Edward Sims and his wife and son  live in West Germany, where he reports  on news and developments in Western  Europe for syndication in the United  States. He served as a fighter pilot in  the Second World War, flying thirty-  three missions over Germany. Since  the war he has been a journalist and  editor of various American news-  agencies and newspapers. He is the  author of American Aces and Greatest  Fighter Missions.     

ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS    

CONDITION V GOOD  ,WITH DUST JACKET 

BINDING TIGHT .CLEAN INTERIOR

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