The Blue Arena - Softcover

Spurdle, Bob

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0907579981 ISBN 13: 9780907579984

Publisher: Goodall Publications Ltd, 2024

Synopsis

As one of Sailor Malan's Tigers, a Spitfire dominated Bob Spurdle's WWII flying career with 74 Squadron. Impatient to fly and a rebel against blind officialdom, he wangled one operational posting after another, and was still in action in August 1945. In the meantime he had destroyed eight enemy aircraft, probably four more, and damaged at least 15 others.

After leaving 74 Squadron he flew with both 91 Squadron and the Merchant Ship Fighter Unit before visiting his native New Zealand to fly against the Japanese. Returning to the UK in 1944 as a flight commander in 80 Squadron, he became their Commanding Officer in July of that year.

Latterly he was attached to the 6th Airborne Division for Army Co-operation flying by glider into Germany and then reaching the Elbe by 11th Armored Division tank.

A natural writer, Bob Spurdle vividly expresses the exhilarations and fears of the fighter pilot in action, what it feels like to be jumped by a gaggle of Me109s, coping with the continual pressures of losing friends and of constantly flying in action as part of an elite force on whom the survival of Britain and her allies depended.

About this edition

• Publisher: Goodall Publications Ltd
• Publication date: 2024
• ISBN 10: 0907579981
• ISBN 13: 9780907579984
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224