Spitfire Voices: Life as a Spitfire Pilot in the Words of the Veterans

Spitfire fighter pilots tell their extraordinary stories of combat during the Second World War. SPITFIRE VOICES represents an important oral history of the Spitfire from the pilots' perspective. Drawing upon veterans' personal letters, diaries, contemporary documents and the memories of their families and comrades, this is the deeply moving story of Spitfire pilots who, day after day, were thrown into a maelstrom of life or death aerial combat. Spitfire pilots like Cedric Stone who recalls his first encounter with the Luftwaffe: 'I prepared my sights and set my gun button to fireA". The two specks were aircraft. Me 109s. I prepared for action - I was ready for a fight.'. Maurice Macey of 127 Squadron is more philosophical: 'There is nothing glamorous in being a fighter pilot. There is nothing glamorous in killing and being killed. Exciting, very exciting, sometimes too exciting, but definitely not glamorous, not even in a Spitfire.' The whole range of wartime roles, in all theatres, performed by Spitfire pilots 1939-45 are featured, including air combat, ground attack, deck-landings, crashes and bail-outs, victories and defeats. Illustrated with photographs from the albums of the pilots concerned, Spitfire Voices represents exactly what is was like flying to war in a Spitfire - in the words of those who lived to tell their tales.