'...it was thrilling to down an enemy aircraft. This feeling increased with my catching sight that the German crew had bailed out. I hoped the pilot would be able to bail out as I hoped that’s how someone would think of me.’ [loc. 1623]
Nichol's aim is to tell the human story of the men and women who flew and maintained the iconic Spitfire: a timely endeavour, as he managed to interview quite a few WW2 veterans who died before the book was published.
The book is as interesting for its insights into 1930s Britain as for its accounts of aerial warfare and mechanical detail. Initially, pilots were young aristocrats -- male, of course: 'almost exclusively recruited from the distinguished drinking clientele of White’s'. There was, unsurprisingly, a lot of heavy drinking: If we were flying the next morning and still had a hangover we would plug into our Spitfire’s oxygen supply and this usually did the trick.’"
As the war progressed, 'the distinctive lines of the British class system were ... severely blurred'. Even worse: there were women flying (though ferrying planes -- the ATA -- rather than in combat). One veteran reminisces: "'Women didn’t fly aeroplanes! It shocked me so badly that I said to one of my other buddies: “My God, if a woman can fly that aeroplane, I know I can.”' Warning for period-typical sexism... "Diana simply could not accept putting her bare legs and knickers open to view," Nichol writes of one ATA pilot who, dressed in uniform rather than flying gear, wasn't enthusiastic about bailing out.
More troubling were glimpses of the unsympathetic treatment of pilots suffering combat trauma: "... a fellow pilot had broken down in tears as he went to climb into his plane. The medical officer was quickly summoned. He was clearly of the old school. ‘The doc gave him a terrific punch and a few well-chosen words,’ a 616 officer observed. ‘And we had no further trouble.’"
Nichol covers the combat history of the Spitfire through the Second World War -- Dunkirk, the defense of Malta in 1942, aerial combat in North Africa, downed pilots escaping occupied France and the Netherlands -- through to military action in Malaysia, 1957. There are some fascinating anecdotes, and some details of the plane's capabilities and technical features that I (a woman, with little or no knowledge of mechanics or mass production) found readable and interesting. I have to admit, though, that my focus was on the men and women who flew Spitfires. Fighter pilots were often very young (at least one became a squadron leader in his teens) and had a 50% chance of surviving the war. The women of the ATA (first in Britain to get equal pay) also suffered losses: they weren't taught to 'fly blind' and at least one female veteran is pretty angry about that.
Nichol's final chapter, 'The Last Salute', is a sobering description of life after wartime: of PTSD, a return to inequality for women, mourning the dead, adjusting to a changed world. There are also accounts of reunions (not always cheerful: one pilot discovered, fifty years after the event, that three of the Dutchmen who'd helped him after his plane crashed had been executed as a result of his escape) and final flights in restored Spitfires.
One aspect of the book that resonated with me is reflected in the quotation that heads this review: the mano e mano nature of Spitfire combat. The pilots don't come across as bloodthirsty (though several clearly hated the enemy): their focus was the destruction of the enemy aircraft, rather than of the people within.
Also features an account of exactly how to 'tip' a V1 bomb in mid-flight, preventing it from reaching its target: this sparked a reread of Elizabeth Wein's Rose Under Fire, in which the heroine does just that.
‘The best way to stop a V1 was to get your wingtip under its wings and tip it up, thereby toppling the gyros that controlled it, causing it to dive out of control before reaching populated areas.’ [loc. 4768]
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