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Graham Pitchfork

The acclaimed chronicler of RAF history has compiled ninety-one obituaries of outstanding aviators covering the period from 2007 to the end of 2017.

With a focus on personnel from a range of air forces, including the RAF, USAF, RCAF, RNZAF and SAAF, there are a number of fascinating and distinguishable lives to read about. Those featured include MRAF Sir Michael Beetham, the longest-serving Chief of Air Staff in the RAF (apart from its founder Lord Trenchard); Brigadier General Paul Tibbets who commanded the USAAF bomber Enola Gay, which dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945; and Wing Commander “Dal” Russel, a highly decorated wartime Canadian fighter pilot, whose logbook recorded kills in the Battle of Britain and the Normandy invasion. There is also Lettice Curtis, the first woman qualified to fly a four-engine bomber and who by the end of the Second World War had flown over 400 heavy bombers, 150 Mosquitos and hundreds of Hurricanes and Spitfires as part of her role in the Air Transport Auxiliary. The book includes a foreword written by former Chief of Air Staff, Sir Richard Johns.

Grub Street Publishing

The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph Airmen's Obituaries

This “classic compilation” (The Field) of newspaper death notices “includes the great, the brave, the adventurous, and the eccentric” (Soldier Magazine).
 
 Part of the unique series compiled by Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper, this volume collects one hundred recent obituaries of military figures. Some have been celebrated for their great heroism and involvement in major operations, while others have extraordinary stories barely remembered even by their families. Those featured include Pte. Harry Patch, the last survivor of those who went “over the top” on the Western Front in 1917; Lt. Col. Colonel Eric Wilson of the Somaliland Camel Corps, who learned he had been awarded a “posthumous” Victoria Cross in a prison camp; and Col. Clive Fairweather, who organized the SAS attack on the terrorists who seized the Iranian embassy in London in 1980. These tributes and miniature biographies make fascinating reading for those interested in history and the military.
 
 As Andrew Roberts wrote of the first collection: “They evoke swirling, profound, even guilty emotions. . . . To those Britons who have known only peace, these are thought provoking and humbling essays in valor.”

Military Obituaries