Geoffrey Wellum
GEOFFREY WELLUM, a veteran of the Battle of Britain, was the youngest fighter pilot (at 18) in the Royal Air Force (RAF) to have fought in that battle.
"Aged seventeen, he signed up on a short-service commission with the Royal Air Force in August 1939. The first aircraft he flew was the Tiger Moth at Desford airfield in Leicestershire, After successfully completing the course, he then went on to fly the North American Harvard advanced trainer at RAF Little Rissington with 6FTS.
"He was then posted directly in May 1940 to 92 Squadron, flying Spitfires. He saw extensive action during the Battle of Britain. His first Commanding Officer was Roger Bushell, (later immortalised in 'The Great Escape'), and his close colleagues included Brian Kingcome
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Peter de la Billière
General Sir Peter Edgar de la Cour de la Billière, KCB, KBE, DSO, MC & Bar is a former British soldier, who was Director of the United Kingdom Special Forces during the Iranian Embassy Siege and Commander-in-Chief of the British forces in the 1990 Gulf War.
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John Nichol
Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
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Flight Lieutenant Adrian John Nichol (born December 1963) is a retired Royal Air Force navigator who was shot down and captured during the first Gulf War. -
Tim Peake
Major Timothy Nigel "Tim" Peake CMG (born 7 April 1972) is a British Army Air Corps officer, European Space Agency astronaut and a former International Space Station (ISS) crew member.
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He is the first British ESA astronaut, the second astronaut to bear a British flag patch (the first was Helen Sharman, who visited Mir as part of Project Juno in 1991), the sixth person born in the United Kingdom to go on board the International Space Station (the first was NASA astronaut Michael Foale in 2003) and the seventh UK-born person in space. He began the ESA's intensive astronaut basic training course in September 2009 and graduated on 22 November 2010. -
Jack Fairweather
Jack Fairweather, is a British journalist and author.
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He has been a correspondent for the Washington Post and the Daily Telegraph, where he served as the Baghdad and Persian Gulf bureau chief of British troops. His reporting during the Iraq War earned him Britain’s top press award. -
Tom Neil
Thomas Neil joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve (RAFVR) on 17th October 1938 and began his flying training at 17 E&RFTS, Barton, Manchester.
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Called up on 2nd September 1939, Neil went to 4 ITW; Bexhill in early November.
On 1st December he was posted to 8 FFS, Montrose and on completion of the course, he was commissioned and joined 249 Squadron on 15th May 1940 at its reformation at Church Fenton.
Flying from North Weald on 7th September, Neil claimed a Bf 109 fighter destroyed, on the 11th a He 111 bomber, on the 15th two Bf 109s and a Do 17 bomber destroyed and another Do 17 shared, on the 18th a He 111 damaged and on the 27th a Bf 110 and a Ju 88 bomber destroyed, a Bf 110 fighter probably destroyed and a Ju 88 shared.
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E.C.R. Lorac
Edith Caroline Rivett (who wrote under the pseudonyms E.C.R. Lorac, Carol Carnac, Carol Rivett, and Mary le Bourne) was a British crime writer. She was born in Hendon, Middlesex (now London). She attended the South Hampstead High School, and the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London.
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She was a member of the Detection Club. She was a very prolific writer, having written forty-eight mysteries under her first pen name, and twenty-three under her second. She was an important author of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. -
Sinclair McKay
Sinclair McKay writes regularly for the Daily Telegraph and The Secret Listeners and has written books about James Bond and Hammer horror for Aurum. His next book, about the wartime “Y” Service during World War II, is due to be published by Aurum in 2012. He lives in London.
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Pierre Clostermann
Pierre-Henri Clostermann DSO, DFC & Bar was a World War II French ace fighter pilot.
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During the conflict he achieved 33 air-to-air combat victories, earning the accolade "France's First Fighter" from General Charles de Gaulle. His wartime memoir, The Big Show (Le Grand Cirque) became a notable bestseller. After the war, he worked as an engineer and was the youngest Member of France's Parliament.
In 1951, Clostermann authored an account of his wartime experiences entitled Le Grand Cirque (published in English as The Big Show). One of the first post-war fighter pilot memoirs, its various editions have sold over two and a half million copies. William Faulkner stated that "The Big Show" was one of the finest aviation books to come out of World W -
Bert Stiles
Bert Stiles was an American author of short stories who was killed in action during World War II while serving as a fighter pilot in the U.S. Army Air Forces.
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Stiles enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1942, became an aviation cadet, and upon completion of training, received his officer's commision as a 2nd Lieutenant in November 1943.
Initially, Stiles served as a bomber pilot with the 401st Bomb Squadron of the 91st Bomb Group (U.S. Eighth Air Force) in Britain. He flew his first combat mission over Germany on April 19th, 1944 and completed his combat tour before the end of the summer of 1944.
Throughout his service with the 91st Bomb Group, Stiles continued writing (something he had taken to when he worked as a features writer for his college new -
J.E. Johnson
Air Vice Marshal James Edgar Johnson, CB, CBE, DSO & Two Bars, DFC & Bar, nicknamed "Johnnie", was a Royal Air Force (RAF) pilot and flying ace—defined as a pilot that has shot down five or more enemy aircraft in aerial combat—who flew and fought during the Second World War.
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Johnson grew up and was educated in the East Midlands, where he qualified as an engineer. He served as an Assistant Engineer at Ilkeston and latterly to the Chigwell Urban District Council at Loughton. A sportsman, Johnson broke his collarbone while playing rugby, an injury that later complicated his ambitions of becoming a fighter pilot. Johnson had been interested in aviation since his youth and applied to join the RAF. He was initially rejected, first on social, and -
Roger Crowley
Roger Crowley was born in 1951 and spent part of his childhood in Malta. He read English at Cambridge University and taught English in Istanbul, where he developed a strong interest in the history of Turkey. He has traveled widely throughout the Mediterranean basin over many years and has a wide-ranging knowledge of its history and culture. He lives in Gloucestershire, England.
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Damien Lewis
Damien Lewis became an author largely by accident, when a British publisher asked him if he'd be willing to turn a TV documentary he was working on into a book. That film was shot in the Sudan war zone, and told the story of how Arab tribes seized black African slaves in horrific slave raids. Lewis had been to the Sudan war zone dozens of times over the past decade, reporting on that conflict for the BBC, Channel 4 and US and European broadcasters.
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His slavery documentary told the story of a young girl from the Nuba tribe, seized in a raid and sold into slavery in Khartoum, Sudan's capital city, and of her epic escape. The publisher asked Lewis if the Nuba girl would be willing to write her life story as a book, with his help as co-author. T -
Max Arthur
Max Arthur is an author who specialises in first-hand recollections of historical events. He has worked closely with the Imperial War Museum to bring together two books in the Forgotten Voices series, Forgotten Voices of the Great War and Forgotten Voices of the Second World War. Prior to becoming a writer, he served with the Royal Air Force and for some years was an actor.
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James Holland
Librarian note:
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There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
James Holland was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire, and studied history at Durham University. He has worked for several London publishing houses and has also written for a number of national newspapers and magazines. Married with a son, he lives near Salisbury. -
Robert Leckie
Leckie was born on December 18, 1920, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He grew up in Rutherford, New Jersey. He began his career as a writer in high school, as a sports writer for ''The Bergen Evening Record'' in Hackensack, New Jersey.
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On January 18, 1942, Leckie enlisted in the United States Marine Corps.He served in combat in the Pacific theater, as a scout and a machine gunner in H Company, 2nd Battalion 1st Marines Regiment 1st Marine Division (United States). Leckie saw combat in the Battle of Guadalcanal, the Battle of Cape Gloucester, and had been wounded by blast concussion in the Battle of Peleliu. He returned to the United States in March 1945 and was honorably discharged shortly thereafter.
Following World War II, Leckie worked as a -
Eugene B. Sledge
Eugene Bondurant Sledge (November 4, 1923 – March 3, 2001) was a United States Marine, university professor, and author. His 1981 memoir With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa chronicled his combat experiences during World War II and was subsequently used as source material for Ken Burns's PBS documentary, The War, as well as the HBO miniseries The Pacific, in which he is portrayed by Joseph Mazzello.
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Max Hastings
Sir Max Hugh Macdonald Hastings, FRSL, FRHistS is a British journalist, editor, historian and author. His parents were Macdonald Hastings, a journalist and war correspondent, and Anne Scott-James, sometime editor of Harper's Bazaar.
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Hastings was educated at Charterhouse School and University College, Oxford, which he left after a year.After leaving Oxford University, Max Hastings became a foreign correspondent, and reported from more than sixty countries and eleven wars for BBC TV and the London Evening Standard.
Among his bestselling books Bomber Command won the Somerset Maugham Prize, and both Overlord and The Battle for the Falklands won the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Prize.
After ten years as editor and then editor-in-chief of The Dai -
Alex Kershaw
Alex Kershaw is the author of the widely acclaimed best sellers Against All Odds, The First Wave, The Bedford Boys, The Longest Winter, The Few, #TheLiberator, the basis for the Netflix drama, and Escape from the Deep, as well as biographies of Jack London, Raoul Wallenberg and Robert Capa. His latest book is Patton's Prayer, published May 2024.
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Antony Beevor
Sir Antony James Beevor is a British military historian. He has published several popular historical works, mainly on the Second World War, the Spanish Civil War, and most recently the Russian Revolution and Civil War.
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Educated at Abberley Hall School, Winchester College, and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Beevor commanded a troop of tanks in the 11th Hussars in Germany before deciding in 1970 to leave the army and become a writer. He was a visiting professor at Birkbeck, University of London, and the University of Kent. His best-selling books, Stalingrad (1998) and Berlin: The Downfall 1945 (2002), have been acclaimed for their detailed coverage of the battles between the Soviet Union and Germany, and their focus on the experiences o -
Bert Stiles
Bert Stiles was an American author of short stories who was killed in action during World War II while serving as a fighter pilot in the U.S. Army Air Forces.
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Stiles enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1942, became an aviation cadet, and upon completion of training, received his officer's commision as a 2nd Lieutenant in November 1943.
Initially, Stiles served as a bomber pilot with the 401st Bomb Squadron of the 91st Bomb Group (U.S. Eighth Air Force) in Britain. He flew his first combat mission over Germany on April 19th, 1944 and completed his combat tour before the end of the summer of 1944.
Throughout his service with the 91st Bomb Group, Stiles continued writing (something he had taken to when he worked as a features writer for his college new -
Paul Brickhill
From Rosetta Books:
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Though The Great Escape is a novel, its basic story is true, and the novel's author Paul Brickhill (1916-91) was a participant in it. Brickhill, an Australian, had flown missions against the Germans in Tunisia for the Royal Australian Air Force when he was shot down in 1943. Locked away and bored in Silesia in Luft Stalag III, he and his fellow prisoners concocted an escape plan -- a daring idea that would result in a mass escape from the Germans. Of the 76 officers who escaped, only three were successful; Hitler himself ordered the execution of 47 of the men who were recaptured. Still, the escape remains one of the great heroic stories of World War II.
A native of Melbourne, Brickhill had begun a career as a newspaper rep -
J.E. Johnson
Air Vice Marshal James Edgar Johnson, CB, CBE, DSO & Two Bars, DFC & Bar, nicknamed "Johnnie", was a Royal Air Force (RAF) pilot and flying ace—defined as a pilot that has shot down five or more enemy aircraft in aerial combat—who flew and fought during the Second World War.
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Johnson grew up and was educated in the East Midlands, where he qualified as an engineer. He served as an Assistant Engineer at Ilkeston and latterly to the Chigwell Urban District Council at Loughton. A sportsman, Johnson broke his collarbone while playing rugby, an injury that later complicated his ambitions of becoming a fighter pilot. Johnson had been interested in aviation since his youth and applied to join the RAF. He was initially rejected, first on social, and -
Pierre Clostermann
Pierre-Henri Clostermann DSO, DFC & Bar was a World War II French ace fighter pilot.
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During the conflict he achieved 33 air-to-air combat victories, earning the accolade "France's First Fighter" from General Charles de Gaulle. His wartime memoir, The Big Show (Le Grand Cirque) became a notable bestseller. After the war, he worked as an engineer and was the youngest Member of France's Parliament.
In 1951, Clostermann authored an account of his wartime experiences entitled Le Grand Cirque (published in English as The Big Show). One of the first post-war fighter pilot memoirs, its various editions have sold over two and a half million copies. William Faulkner stated that "The Big Show" was one of the finest aviation books to come out of World W -
John Nichol
Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
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Flight Lieutenant Adrian John Nichol (born December 1963) is a retired Royal Air Force navigator who was shot down and captured during the first Gulf War. -
Saburō Sakai
Saburō Sakai (Japanese: 坂井 三郎) was a Japanese naval aviator and flying ace ("Gekitsui-O", 撃墜王) of the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II. Sakai had 28 aerial victories, including shared ones, according to official Japanese records, though he and his ghostwriter Martin Caidin claimed much higher numbers.
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Eric Lomax
Lomax was a British Army officer who was sent to a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in 1942. He is most famous for writing a book, The Railway Man, on his experience before, during, and after World War II, which won the 1996 NCR Book Award and the J. R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography.
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John W. Hackett
General Sir John Winthrop Hackett GCB, CBE, DSO & Bar, MC was an Australian-born British soldier, author and university administrator.
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Hackett, who was nicknamed "Shan", was born in Perth, Western Australia. His Irish Australian father, Sir John Winthrop Hackett (1848–1916), originally from Tipperary,was a newspaper proprietor and politician and his mother was Deborah Drake-Brockman (1887–1965) — later Lady Deborah Hackett, Lady Deborah Moulden and Dr Deborah Buller Murphy — a director of mining companies. John Hackett junior's maternal grandparents were prominent members of Western Australian society: Grace Bussell, famous for rescuing shipwreck survivors as a teenager and Frederick Slade Drake-Brockman, a prominent surveyor and explorer.
He -
Richard de Crespigny
Melbourne born and educated Richard Champion de Crespigny got his first taste of a future flying career as a fourteen year old when his father took him on a tour of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Academy at Point Cook in Victoria.
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In 1975 aged seventeen, he joined the RAAF. One year later he started flying, joining Qantas Airlines several years later as a commercial pilot.
In 2010 Richard piloted an Airbus 380 that came perilously close to crashing. He has told the story of this amazing escape in his first book QF32. -
Denis Barnham
Denis Barnham was an artist and writer. During the second World War he joined the RAF and was posted as a Pilot Officer to 65 Squadron in April 1941. In July he was posted to 609 Squadron and on 8th November, while being chased by two Fw 190s, turned and shot one of them down. In March 1942 he was again posted, this time to 154 Squadron, but the following month he joined 601 Squadron as a flight commander to go to Malta. He flew from the carrier USS Wasp, and arrived on the island on 20th April. He fought on the island until June, when he was returned to England tour-expired. His fighting was during the most confused time, and 601 Squadron, lacking even an intelligence officer, had trouble in assessing its claims or keeping any records. How
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Gavin Mortimer
For a detailed biography, to learn more about all the books I have written and to discover my forthcoming projects, please visit my website at the above link.
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Mike Carlton
Mike Carlton is one of Australia's best-known broadcasters and journalists. In a 40-year career, he has been a radio and television news and current affairs reporter, foreign correspondent, radio host and newspaper columnist.
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He was an ABC war correspondent in Vietnam in 1967 and 1970, and for three years was the ABC's Bureau Chief in Jakarta. He also reported for the ABC from London, New York and major Asian capitals. In television, he was one of the original reporters on the ABC's groundbreaking This Day Tonight in the 1970s. Mike turned to talk radio in 1980, first at Sydney's 2GB, and then for four years in London at Newstalk 97.3FM, where he won a coveted Sony Radio Academy award in 1993 for Britain's best talk breakfast program.
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Paul Richey
RICHEY, Paul Henry Mills, from Chelsea, London was born in Chelsea London on May 7, 1916.
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Richey joined the RAF in 1937 and was posted to 1 Squadron, flying Furies. After completion of his training, Richey was posted, in March 1939, to No.1 Squadron based at Tangmere, flying Hawker Hurricane fighters.
On Sept 8th, shortly after war was declared Richey's squadron were ordered to Vassincourt in France where they flew counter-air patrols in the Metz area.
On December 23, 1939 Richey married Hon. Teresa Robinson, daughter of Roy Lister Robinson, 1st and last Baron Robinson and Charlotte Marion Cust Bradshaw.
On May 10th, 1940 with the start of the German Blitzkrieg began a period of intense fighting. In Hurricane L1679 Flying Officer Paul Richey -
Max Arthur
Max Arthur is an author who specialises in first-hand recollections of historical events. He has worked closely with the Imperial War Museum to bring together two books in the Forgotten Voices series, Forgotten Voices of the Great War and Forgotten Voices of the Second World War. Prior to becoming a writer, he served with the Royal Air Force and for some years was an actor.
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Manfred von Richthofen
Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen was German fighter pilot of aristocratic descent. Better known for his nickname the "Red Baron."
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Von Richthofen is officially credited with 80 confirmed air combat victories. He was awarded with the "Pour le Mérite" the highest Prussian military award.
Richthofen was killed 21 April 1918, while flying a pursuit above North France. He got hit by a .303 bullet. -
Michael Veitch
Michael Veitch spent much of his youth writing and performing in television sketch comedy programs, before freelancing as a columnist and arts reviewer for newspapers and magazines. For four years he presented Sunday Arts, the national arts show on ABC television, and produced two books indulging his life-long interest in the aircraft of the Second World War, Flak and Fly. He lives in Hobart, where he presents ABC radio.
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Books:
Hailing from a family of journalists, Veitch wrote Flak – True stories from the men who flew in World War II published in 2006 by Pan Macmillan and later, Fly: True stories of courage and adventure from the airmen of World War II published by Penguin Australia in August 2008. A third book, The Forgotten Islands, explor -
Tom Neil
Thomas Neil joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve (RAFVR) on 17th October 1938 and began his flying training at 17 E&RFTS, Barton, Manchester.
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Called up on 2nd September 1939, Neil went to 4 ITW; Bexhill in early November.
On 1st December he was posted to 8 FFS, Montrose and on completion of the course, he was commissioned and joined 249 Squadron on 15th May 1940 at its reformation at Church Fenton.
Flying from North Weald on 7th September, Neil claimed a Bf 109 fighter destroyed, on the 11th a He 111 bomber, on the 15th two Bf 109s and a Do 17 bomber destroyed and another Do 17 shared, on the 18th a He 111 damaged and on the 27th a Bf 110 and a Ju 88 bomber destroyed, a Bf 110 fighter probably destroyed and a Ju 88 shared.
On 6th Octobe -
Richard Hillary
Flight Lieutenant Richard Hope Hillary was an Anglo-Australian Royal Air Force fighter pilot during the Second World War. He wrote the book The Last Enemy about his experiences during the Battle of Britain.
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Robin Neillands
Robin Hunter Neillands was a British writer known for his works on travel and military history. A former Royal Marine who served in Cyprus and the Middle East, he later became a prolific author, publishing under multiple pen names. His military histories, often featuring firsthand accounts from veterans, challenged revisionist narratives, particularly regarding Bernard Montgomery, the Dieppe Raid, and the Allied bombing campaign in World War II. Neillands also authored numerous travel books inspired by his extensive journeys across Europe. His works, both popular and scholarly, earned him a nomination for the Royal United Services Institute’s Military Literature Award.
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Ian Gleed
Ian Richard Gleed had his first flight at Hatfield (a joyride with the London Aeroplane Club) while still at school. He later became a member of the London Aeroplane Club (thought to have joined in April 1935). He gained his licence on 12 July 1935 (No.12976) at Hatfield. However, one biographer states he qualified on 31 July 1936 (No. 8003) – after he joined the RAF in March 1936 (possibly this refers to a B-licence).
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He was given the nickname 'Widge' – short for 'Wizard Midget', apparently due to his tendency to call things 'Wizard' (like people today describe things as 'Wicked'), and his short stature (he was 5 feet 6 inches / 1.65m). He mentions his RAF nickname in his part-fiction, part-autobiographical book but claimed not to know how