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Superb Look At A Famed Battle

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By AL HUTCHISON

The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 8, 2009

"With Wings Like Eagles: A History of the Battle of Britain," by Michael Korda (HarperCollins, $26)

When I remember 1940, I recall air raid sirens, being ushered into bomb shelters by our teachers and being required to wear gas masks until the all-clear signal was heard. My parents had an air raid shelter in our backyard, too, and I have vivid memories of the night a German bomb fell in a nearby cabbage patch. Instant cole slaw.

That was the year the authorities in Dundee, Scotland, installed searchlights on our street, erected what we called a pill box (a concrete structure with slots for machine guns) a few yards from our home, and erected barricades on the main roads so that in the event of an invasion the German tanks would be at least slowed down.

Dundee was bombed, but few were killed and no significant damage was inflicted. I had to step around bomb craters on my way to school, but life went on as usual. I was 6 and generally unaware of what was happening elsewhere in the United Kingdom. I knew little about the Battle of Britain and the scale of the German air assaults on London that occurred that same year, far to the south.

Books have been written about the Battle of Britain, but to me none is as interesting and informative as Michael Korda's new "With Wings Like Eagles." Reading it, I felt almost guilty for not having had a greater appreciation for the most admirable person in his account, Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Downing.

Actually, although I had a brother in the RAF, I'd forgotten Downing ever existed, and from Korda's account it seems fair to say that several of his contemporaries wish he had never crossed their paths during that critical year in British history. Not only did he consistently rub people the wrong way, but his preferred (but controversial) strategy led to victory for him and his country.

And what was that strategy? For one thing, he insisted that his pilots (flying legendary Spitfires and Hawker Hurricanes) attack the enemy bombers and not be distracted by the swift fighters escorting them, because every time a bomber was shot down the Germans lost a larger, well-trained crew and a more expensive airplane than when a smaller, one-person fighter was downed. Even more important was his insistence on keeping many of his aircraft in reserve so the Germans would think he was running out of weapons. His rivals wanted to use all of their aircraft at once.

Korda is a former RAF pilot who conceivably could almost have written this superb book off the top of his head, but he took his task seriously and engaged in prodigious research to support every word he wrote. The result is a compelling description of one of the great battles in British history. Now, in old age, I finally understand what was happening that long-ago summer.

Al Hutchison of Citrus County is a freelance writer.

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