Last week and I spent a fascinating few days interviewing former Battle of Britain pilots in Germany and Austria.  As soon as they are all transcribed I shall post them up on the Oral History Archive, but I learnt much from them. 

When I first thought about doing a book about the Battle of Britain from both sides I felt certain that including the German perspective would lead to a very different overall view of the battle, and so far I have not been proved wrong.  Among the things of interest that emerged were the obvious problems of stress and battle fatigue that affected a number of the pilots, and also that the nuisance raids on their airfields by Blenheims of Bomber Command also got under their skin.  There was also a problem of aircraft shortages – one fighter pilot had to wait three weeks after joining his staffel before there was a Me 109 for him to fly. Read more…

On 19th May, Bantam Press are publishing The Odin Mission, the first of a series of Second World War adventure novels featuring Jack Tanner.  I’ve always loved the Sharpe novels by Bernard Cornwell and the Hornblower books by C.S. Forrester, and it suddenly struck me a little while ago that a similar hero could easily have a long and distinguished career running through the Second World War. Read more…