Buy this book on-line CROSLEY, DSC,RN. Cdr R.'Mike': : THEY GAVE ME A SEAFIREUK.SHREWSBURY, AIRLIFE,1986. ISBN 0906393566.
UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn.NFINE/NFINE.No owner inscrptn,and no price-clip to dw/dj.
Bright,crisp,clean,glossy laminated colour
artwork and b/w photographic illustrated dw/dj; with negligible shelf-wear and creasing to edges and corners - no nicks or tears present.Top+fore-edges minimally aged/toned - much less than usual/normal;
contents bright,tight,clean and pristine -no dog-ear creases to any pages' corners - possibly an unread copy? Sharp-cornered, bright and clean,publisher's original navy
blue cloth bds with bright,crisp,stamped gilt letters to spine/backstrip and immaculate,plain white eps.UK,8vo HB+ dw/dj,1st edn,10-271pp [paginated] includes 23 chapters+epilogue,24pp contemporary b/w photographs in 3 blocks of 8pp apiece between pp96/7,pp128/9 and pp176/7 respectively,14 appendices,and index,plus [unpaginated] half-title+title pages,contents+appendices lists/tables,a bibliography,acknowledgements,and A Fleet Air Arm song.
The Royal Navy was disparaging towards them and did not know how to use them.In encounter after encounter with the enemy, they had to fly aircraft which were often either inferior or unsuitable on
'impossible' missions from carriers whose Fleet commanders did not understand - or even wish to know about - their problems or limitations.Yet they forged themselves into an elite whose prowess has only belatedly been acknowledged.They were the fighter pilots of the Royal Naval Volunteer Resrve,irreverent of Naval tradition,customs or discipline,yet roaring off the flight decks of their unstable launching platforms (not knowing whether they would be able to find them again at the end of the mission) with incredible courage and elan to do battle with their German,Italian or Japanese counterparts over the oceans of the world.
'Mike' Crosley started training with the Fleet Air Arm on the very day of the battle of Taranto and went on to serve aboard HMS Eagle on the notorius Malta convoy run,shooting down his first two enemy aircraft - one of them a Ju 88,and this from a Sea Hurricane! - in two days.
Surviving Eagle's sinking in August 1942, the author graduated to Seafires - the naval equivalent of the Spitfire - and flew this beautiful but often troublesome aircraft in Combat Air Patrols and
ramrod' strikes until the end of the war,
by which time he had command of his own squadron.
From hilarious episodes during training and working up in the West Country and Scotland,through the Allied landings in north Africa during operation 'Torch' and an arctic convoy to Russia in which his
carrier was so badly storm-damaged that it
had to limp home with its flight deck virtually hanging loose from its hull,the author describes in vivid detail the experiences,the excitement and the terror
of this type of flying.
He finished the war,still flying Seafires,aboard HMS Implacable as part of
the 'forgotten' British Pacific Fleet.He devised tactics for attacks on ground and naval targets which were so successful that they were not formally adopted by the
Royal Navy until 14 years after the war's end,and which cut down pilot and aircraft
losses so much that his Admiral complained
the Seafires were not trying hard enough, despite their superb record of successes.
Frank, often scathingly critical of 'Their
Lordships' and others,side-splittingly funny one moment and desparately tragic the next,this is the true story of a young
man thrown into a war which would first bring him together with his sweetheart and
then separate them,which would bring comradeship,exhilaration and tragedy in almost equal amounts. . . . . .
Poignantly written,it is a book to rival
the best yet on the 'Wavy Navy' and its subordinate but highly successful fighter pilots.
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