The Big Show: Some Experiences Of A French Fighter Pilot In The R.A.F.
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Chipped and worn with some minor damage
Pages: Tanning and foxing
Markings: Previous owner,Fair - Rubbed edges and bumping on spine and corners
One of the most electrifying combat memoirs to emerge from the Second World War, The Big Show thrusts the reader into the cockpit alongside Pierre Clostermann, France's highest-scoring fighter ace, as he chronicles his extraordinary career flying Spitfires and Tempests with the Royal Air Force. From the desperate scrambles over occupied Europe to the thunderous chaos of aerial dogfights, Clostermann details the raw fear, fierce camaraderie, and breathtaking courage that defined life in Fighter Command — all rendered with a vividness that no fiction could replicate. Translated by Oliver Berthoud and introduced with a foreword by Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir John Slessor, this memoir stands as a landmark of wartime literature, celebrated for its unflinching honesty and its rare dual perspective — that of a Frenchman fighting for a liberated homeland from a British cockpit. Clostermann's prose is precise and visceral, capturing the mechanical poetry of flight alongside the crushing weight of loss, and his account remains essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the human cost and the indomitable spirit of the air war over Europe. What drives a man to climb back into the cockpit after watching his closest comrades fall? Clostermann's answer will stay with you long after the final page.
Author: Pierre Clostermann
Format: Hardback
Published: 1951, Chatto and Windus
Genre: WW2
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Chipped and worn with some minor damage
Pages: Tanning and foxing
Markings: Previous owner,Fair - Rubbed edges and bumping on spine and corners
One of the most electrifying combat memoirs to emerge from the Second World War, The Big Show thrusts the reader into the cockpit alongside Pierre Clostermann, France's highest-scoring fighter ace, as he chronicles his extraordinary career flying Spitfires and Tempests with the Royal Air Force. From the desperate scrambles over occupied Europe to the thunderous chaos of aerial dogfights, Clostermann details the raw fear, fierce camaraderie, and breathtaking courage that defined life in Fighter Command — all rendered with a vividness that no fiction could replicate. Translated by Oliver Berthoud and introduced with a foreword by Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir John Slessor, this memoir stands as a landmark of wartime literature, celebrated for its unflinching honesty and its rare dual perspective — that of a Frenchman fighting for a liberated homeland from a British cockpit. Clostermann's prose is precise and visceral, capturing the mechanical poetry of flight alongside the crushing weight of loss, and his account remains essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the human cost and the indomitable spirit of the air war over Europe. What drives a man to climb back into the cockpit after watching his closest comrades fall? Clostermann's answer will stay with you long after the final page.