A great book , if you have not read it or for a gift is FIRST LIGHT, by Geoffrey Wellum. He is a former RAF pilot.
It is easy to read , flows well, and has a real feel of truth to it.
He's not the perfect pilot who performs Yeager like feats everyday with no fear. Rather he is a teenager called by war to fight for his country's survival and many times scared just as most of us would be.
His writing style is witty and precise, yet easy to read. In describing his first solo in a Spitfire, which is pretty overwhelming for a boy just 18, he writes that "a Spitfire has just landed at Duxford with me inside it".
As of a few years ago he was still living in Britain, I hope he still is, and I'd love to meet him if anyone knows.
Of all the 100 or so aviation books that I have this is probably my favorite and the one I most reread.
There are times when he is in hard combat and half expecting to die any minute. He had an eye for detail and especially the bigger picture and personal observations of those around him. They are boys still even though they are playing a man's game, and have to grow up fast.
If you want to know what flying a Spitfire is like, read the part where he is caught under the solid clouds, over the cold and unforgiving English Channel and getting low on fuel and running out of daylight, and trying everything to stay calm and get home alive, when he knows that almost all his luck and options have run out.
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