Spitfire Ace: My Life as a Battle of Britain Fighter Pilot

Pitched into the maelstrom of air fighting in the summer of 1940, 24 year old Gordon Olive barely lived to tell this extraordinary tale of courage and endurance. As Britain fought alone for its own survival, ‘the Few’ of RAF Fighter Command took to the air grievously outnumbered many reaching braking point, exhausted, physically and mentally by intense combat. Gordon Olive flew the iconic Spitfire for over 125 missions above London and the South East, the ‘white heat’ of the aerial battle for supremacy of the skies. One of the most heavily engaged pilots of the battle, he shot down ten enemy aircraft. This is his story of what it was like to dogfight with Messerschmitts at speeds of 400 mph, experiencing G forces close to black-out, at one moment to be drenched in sweat with exertion, the next to be freezing at 25,000 feet, to smell the cordite of your own fighter’s machine guns and feel cannon shells explode against the back of your armoured seat.