A damp, soggy sandbank is not the ideal runway, but Pilot Officer Mike Hickling was using one as he battled to coax his Gladiator into the air. And, to make matters worse, a mate of his was lying flat on the wing, holding on like grim death. All this with a German launch slamming over […]
The Luftwaffe ground crews standing around the German drome gazed upwards in amazement. There, above them, a Royal Air Force Mosquito was circling, undercarriage and flaps down, preparing to make a landing. It looked like a crafty trick of some kind – but no! The Mosquito touched down and rolled to a standstill. The pilot […]
The story of a grubby RAF mechanic who threw away his spanner and stole a Buffalo – to become a fighter ace! Story: Staff Art: Mira Cover: Ian Kennedy
Pilot Officer Bob Barnes was bored. He’d joined the RAF hoping to be a fighter pilot, always in the thick of things. Yet, here he was, a navigator in a Catalina, searching the seemingly endless oceans for U-boats which they never seemed to find. There was none of the action he’d craved, this was more […]
Tich Bradbury had never been frightened in his life. His crazy courage was legendary in the RAF aerodrome where he flew Lancs. But suddenly, he did know fear — just because he had volunteered to fly a different bomber on the next mission… for this plane was a legend in the aerodrome too. It was […]
From the moment Jack Mitchell joined the R.A.F. and began his flying training as a pilot, he was a marked man. He was pointed out to strangers; his mates used to whisper about him; his every move was watched. And when his pilot’s wings were eventually pinned to his chest, even the R.A.F. expected great […]
…that’s all Jan Solecik wanted. Trouble was, he’d been thrown off pilot training courses and was now stuck in the Polish Army, fighting alongside British troops in the North African desert. As he looked up at the aircraft which fought in the sky above him, not even he could imagine the strange series of events […]
Sam Blake was fed up. He’d come from Canada to join the R.A.F. to fight Nazis as a fully qualified pilot, only to find he had to learn to fly all over again, the official way. Then they kicked him out of a fighter squadron. “Too reckless and irresponsible,” they said. “Give him a bomber. […]
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