Best WWII Aviation Books?

Speaking about memoirs, try "They gave me a Seafire" by Commander R. "Mike" Crosley, Royal Navy (Airlife, 1986). That is, if You Can find it...
Jeffrey Quill's authobiography: "Spitfire, a test pilot story" is also a favorite of mine.
Rgds

 

These titles are not so much about the airplanes as they are about the the people that flew them. All are enlightening, fantastic reads: "Flyboys", "Unbroken", "The Forgotten 500".

 

Pierre Clostermann,s "The big sky" is an excellent read.

 

If you haven't read Unbroken, you should. Another one which covers some of the same ground is Baa Baa Black Sheep.

 

Over the years, I've read many of the biographies/autobiographies of the WW II aces, and they were all enjoyable; basically nonfiction that read like fiction. Samurai, Wing Leader, The First and the Last, Thunderbolt, The Big Show (mentioned above), Reach for the Sky - all good reads.

 

Also not strictly a WWII book, but "A Hostage To Fortune" by Ernest K. Gann is excellent, and well worth reading.

 

Gann wrote many good books, all of them dealt with the dangers of early airlines or early WW2 . Any of them is good reading; Fate Is The Hunter, The High and Mighty, Island In The Sky, and his first, Blaze Of Noon.And the one that I illustrated, Ernest K. Gann's Flying Circus. Look them up.

 

Reach for the Sky

 

I remember that when I was young, Ballantine Books published a lot of great paperbacks on aviation and military subjects. They had been 35 cents originally, but by the time I got to them they had gone up to 50 cents. I still have many of them!

 

I recently re-read Yeager, and I enjoyed it again.

 

"Wings On My Sleeve"

the Eric Winkle Brown story, most accomplished test pilot in history

 

Among non-biographies, I always liked Martin Caidin's nonfiction titles, many of which were also issued on Ballantine paperbacks. To me the best of the lot was "The Ragged, Rugged Warriors".

 

Buy a good used copy of Gann's "Flying Circus" (Amazon?) with Bob's color illustrations... you'll want to keep it in your Library.

 

Also, don't miss Caiden's "Samurai", about Saburo Sakai, the great Japanese ace from WWII.
Great book. Sakai lived to be 84 and told the story.

 

Couple already mentioned, Pierre Clostermann's books are a great read, Jeffery Quill as well.

An American story I really enjoyed was Tumult in the Clouds by James Goodson, he flew with some American legends.

Guy Gibsons "Enemy Coast Ahead" . Paul Brickhills, Dam Busters and Battle of Britain.

Many more including Douglas Bader, Adolf Galland are all good reads.

But the best told in the most human and compelling way is Geoffrey Wellum's book
"First Light".

Not a lot of bravado in that one, really lets you feel how **** scared most of those boys really were.