The Real Spitfire Pilot: Flight Lieutenant D.M. Crook DFCs Original Unpublished Manuscript [Hardcover]

Flight Lieutenant David Moore Crook DFCs original Spitfire Pilot ranks among the finest first-hand accounts published during the Second World War, particularly for a Battle of Britain airman. It rightly remains a sought-after classic.A Spitfire pilot during the epic aerial battles of the summer of 1940, DMC became a decorated ace. However, he did not survive the war: his Spitfire inexplicably crashed into the sea off the Scottish coast on 18 December 1944. A married man and father, he remains missing.First published under wartime conditions in 1942, Spitfire Pilot was not heavily censored  unlike Squadron Leader Brian Lane DFCs similar first-hand account Spitfire! The Experiences of a Fighter Pilot, published the same year. DMCs book was based on his entries in two Stationary Office lined notebooks, hastily scribbled between sorties, and using his pilots flying log book for reference.In 1990, the renowned Battle of Britain historian Dilip Sarkar traced DMCs widow, Dorothy, who enthusiastically supported the idea of re-publishing Spitfire Pilot. She duly uncovered bound copies of DMCs original manuscript, which she passed to Dilip.The Real Spitfire Pilot is, therefore, DMCs original, completely uncensored and unedited words, shared here for the first time. It provides a totally authentic window on the past, providing a unique glimpse at the lives  and deaths  of real Spitfire pilots in our Finest Hour. With an introduction and conclusion by Dilip Sarkar, and illustrated with previously unseen photographs, this is destined to become another classic.Flight Lieutenant David Crook was a Spitfire pilot during the Battle of Britain who became a decorated aceHis original autobiography was first published in 1942 under the wartime conditions imposed on such worksCrook was killed when his Spitfire inexplicably crashed into the sea off the Scottish coast on 18 December 1944Crooks widow uncovered his original handwritten manuscript  it is this that forms the basisl'