This personal record of the campaign in France from September 1939 to June 1940 was compiled from a series of daily diary notes by a then anonymous Pilot Officer who flew throughout that period with the famous No. 1 Squadron of the RAF.

This is Paul Richey's personal account of the part played by the Royal Air Force's premier fighter squadron in the air battles preceeding the fall of France in 1940. Faced with overwhelming odds, Richey and his comrades at first accorded the enemy mercy and respect, but this attitude was to change once the Luftwaffe began its attacks on helpless refugees. By the time No. 1 Squadron withdrew from France on 18th June 1940, they had gained a formidable combat reputation. Miraculously, they had destroyed a total of 155 enemy aircraft with only three of their own pilots having been killed, two wounded and one captured. This book stands as a moving account of a young pilot's confrontation with the brutalities of war

'He has written what I believe to be one of the best books to come out of the war ... There is revealed, for the first time in this war, the mind and general make-up of an RAF pilot, and the beauty of it is that it is told so simply and so humbly... If ever a man's soul was put into a book, here in Fighter Pilot is the soul of one of the young men who have helped to save Britain' Daily Mail

'Of the many books written about the air war, this is the finest' News Chronicle

'I have read no book approaching Fighter Pilot in the vividness of its description of air fighting' The Daily Telegraph

'One of the greatest and most stirring tales a fighting man has ever told' EVENING STANDARD

2002

Edited Diana Richeyfor 2002 pub with enhanced and additional images