Author Description

-'Realistic... vivid... what it is like to be under fire four miles up in the sky' NEW YORK TIMES. -First published in 1941, Arthur Donahue was forced to use pseudonyms for his fellow fighter pilots by the wartime censor, this new illustrated edition published by Spitfire Publishers in October 2019 reveals their real names for the first time. -An exceptional memoir by a Battle of Britain Spitfire pilot who shot down three enemy aircraft. -Includes a newly written introduction, glossary and set of biographies of Donahue's fellow pilots and their fate written by historian Jonathan Reeve author of BATTLE OF BRITAIN VOICES ('A valuable contribution' BBC WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE MAGAZINE). Based on diaries written between sorties during the Battle of Britain, American 'Art' Donahue's fighter pilot memoir is an outstanding true story. In June 1940 he was living on his parents' dairy farm in rural Minnesota. Already a trained pilot, he heard the RAF needed pilots and believing the war against Nazism was also America's fight, he travelled to England risking jail and the loss of his citizenship for breaking US neutrality laws. By the end of July he was flying Spitfires with 64 Squadron in the skies over South East England - the white heat of the Battle of Britain. Art endured a relentless summer and autumn of dawn patrols. He survived dogfights and the harrowing experience of being shot out of the sky by a Messerschmitt 109 - canon shells and machine-gun rounds hammering the back of his armour-plated seat. He would personally account for three enemy aircraft destroyed.ABOUT THE AUTHORArthur 'Art' Donahue was born in St Charles, Minnesota on 29 January 1913. Fascinated by flying from an early age he gained his pilot's license at 19. In 1940 he heard that pilots were being enlisted in Canada for the RAF. He travelled to Canada and, claiming to be Canadian, was accepted and ten days later sailed for Great Britain. Six days after landing he was in England on an accelerated RAF t