First Light: Original Edition (Penguin World War II Collection)

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I've very nearly got the same feeling as I had when they put me in charge of night flying that dreadful night at Kidlington. v=1677259080"}},{"id":274896715938,"handle":"fathers-day","title":"Father's Day","updated_at":"2024-01-29T23:55:12+00:00","body_html":"Put a smile on Dad's face this year with the perfect present for Father's Day - we have selected an exciting range of aviation themed gifts that will suit any budget, and are sure to make Dad feel special. His recollections of time on the ground with his fellow pilots are still lighthearted and amusing, but this is in stark contrast to time spent in the air fighting over Southern England and later over Northern France.

It was especially poignant to feel the author's loss of hope for his own survival as his tours wore on, and he lost increasing numbers of friends. This tells the vivid and at times moving portrait of a Spitfires pilots journey through, not just the Second World War, but also young adulthood and the fears and emotions felt by someone young who was involved in the conflict. moving yet startlingly clear-eyed -- Andrew Pettie * Telegraph * One of the most gripping personal accounts of aerial warfare ever written -- Nigel Fountain * Guardian * There have been countless books about the Battle of Britain. I truly enjoyed Geoffrey Wellum's story of his training and chuckled a good many times whilst reading about one thing or another. Published for the first time more than fifty years after the war, First Lightis Geoffrey Wellum's gripping memoir of his experiences as a fighter pilot.There is very little to criticise here but I have subtracted one star from my rating by virtue of a few perceived minor faults. rich in detail' James Holland, Wall Street Journal, 'Five Best World War II Memoirs''An extraordinarily deeply moving and astonishingly evocative story. The Royal Air Forces Association is a charity registered in England and Wales (226686) and Scotland (SC037673). Firstly, it is the memoir of a boy growing into manhood while flying Spitfires during the Battle of Britain.

At the beginning of the same year I co-founded the Hawker Typhoon Preservation Group, a charity established to raise the funds required to rebuild Hawker Typhoon RB396 to flight. We all owe an immense debt of gratitude to you, and ALL the fighter pilots that protected our island, and indeed the many other countries and islands that relied on young brave men like yourself. 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. Viihdyttävä ja vetävä kirja sisältää kaikesta huolimatta paljon kiehtovaa tietoa hävittäjien käsittelystä ja vaihtelevista taistelulennoista. SIGNED BY Geoffrey Wellum, dustjacket good although some light wear to edges, front sleeve clipped, depressing to top and bottom of spine, card square with birthday dedication attached to front end paper, dedicated "to Mike with my very best wishes" and signed by Geoffrey Wellum on title page, internally some age browning.This is action as it happened, told to you by somebody who was there, with a down-to-earth, matter-of-fact tone.

This time my letter explained the situation, how I was disappointed, but that I wouldn’t give up and asked if he had any advice. One is that the book is a bit too long; after the Battle of Britain, Wellum doesn't do anything of great interest in the war and the account of Operation Pedestal can't really stand comparison with his depiction of the earlier fighting. There was a story doing the rounds that one of the local chaps started to tell me, that someone had told him and so on. Despite the delay in publishing the book, Wellum had jotted down notes in an exercise book at the time—something that would give his account unusual depth and quality. Our self obsessed emoticon existances are really something of an embarrasment when compared to a voluntarily enlisted 19yr old fighter pilot in 1940.

First Light” by Geoffrey Wellum was a book I read in 2006 on a family holiday when I was a slightly disenchanted teenager who had all but given up on my childhood dream of flight. Wellum's real achievement is to make the reader experience with him the sheer difficulty of learning to fly along with its many dangers. I really enjoyed the author's style of writing, he was witty, descriptive and came across with a sense of telling a story with understated facts. Phenomenal insight into the life of a pilot, from training to fighting during the battle of Britian and beyond. Next day,with no flying experience,he is expected to pilot a Spitfire;he is nervous but exhilarated.

Thinking I might be allowed in very quickly, under close escort, out comes the man himself, almost bounding over as much as any man his age can do. The flights were something else, starting in the back seat first, then moving to the front, then eventually flying solo after a summer of delays to the training, in October. The various interviews with the author (available online) add an extra poignancy to this memoir in light of his personal struggle in later life. It tells us his story of first becoming a pilot and being chosen among others to become one of the finest pilots who flew the spitfire. He downplayed his own role during the Battle of Britain and I was really hooked on the narrative as it moved along at a cracking pace.This gentleman wrote of his own experiences at the age of 17 as RAF pilot in war action with a genuine and moving personal account from signing up to action. Reminding myself that I’d only flown solo around five years ago at this point and I picked up my well thumbed copy of First Light any time I felt I needed a boost. Regardless of whether or not you have an interest in WWII itself, or the life of a fighter pilot, this is one of the greatest human stories you will read. Geoffrey ‘Boy’ Wellum in ‘G’ for George, depart under early morning sunlight to engage a mass of incoming enemy aircraft over the southeast coast. However, and it is probably due to the author's modesty, I didn't get a good sense of his impending breakdown towards the end of the memoir, nor of his subsequent recovery.