In 1939, at the age of nineteen, Jim Bailey was conscripted into the RAF to train as a fighter pilot. What happened over the next five years to Jim and the men he met, the men who fought, died, and survived, is related with candor and quiet modesty in this book. It describes the youthful heroism of his companions, and he captures the atmosphere of everyday life on the ground in wartime Britain, as well as the air battles.
'A haunting book brilliant' Financial Mail 'It is worthy to stand with the best of air-war memoirs. I've never read a book that was anything like it' Samuel Hynes 'As poignant [a piece of aviation literature] as I have ever read' Sunday Correspondent 'The best airmen are mostly simple people but occasionally there arises one, a poet, a philosopher, who succeeds in lending coherent reason to their love every airman of our age will feel [Jim Bailey has] given wings to his inmost thoughts' Group Captain Peter Townsend
Jim Bailey was born into a world in which 'ordinary' people were regarded as no more than cannon fodder, and well-heeled generals could do no wrong. But attitudes were changing by the time he decided to fight for King and Country in the early autumn of 1939. Now, ordinary mortals such as himself were to be given responsibilities previously unheard of, and tasked with nothing less than saving the country from Nazi tyranny. In a book first published in 1964 we learn what it was like to serve for five years as a fighter pilot, marvelling at the heroics of companion fliers and sometimes witnessing their deaths. Bailey describes his own part in the Battle of Britain and other aerial skirmishes with understated modesty but he evocatively captures the atmosphere of life in the air and on the ground in wartime Britain. His account has become a classic of its type and will long endure.(Kirkus UK)
The Sky Suspended: A Fighter Pilot's Story'A haunting book brilliant' Financial Mail 'It is worthy to stand with the best of air-war memoirs. I've never read a book that was anything like it' Samuel Hynes 'As poignant [a piece of aviation literature] as I have ever read' Sunday Correspondent 'The best airmen are mostly simple people but occasionally there arises one, a poet, a philosopher, who succeeds in lending coherent reason to their love every airman of our age will feel [Jim Bailey has] given wings to his inmost thoughts' Group Captain Peter Townsend
Jim Bailey was born into a world in which 'ordinary' people were regarded as no more than cannon fodder, and well-heeled generals could do no wrong. But attitudes were changing by the time he decided to fight for King and Country in the early autumn of 1939. Now, ordinary mortals such as himself were to be given responsibilities previously unheard of, and tasked with nothing less than saving the country from Nazi tyranny. In a book first published in 1964 we learn what it was like to serve for five years as a fighter pilot, marvelling at the heroics of companion fliers and sometimes witnessing their deaths. Bailey describes his own part in the Battle of Britain and other aerial skirmishes with understated modesty but he evocatively captures the atmosphere of life in the air and on the ground in wartime Britain. His account has become a classic of its type and will long endure.(Kirkus UK)
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