THEY GAVE ME a SEAFIRE

Inscribed & signed on the title page by

Michael Crosley

Airlife first edition 1986.  271 pages and well illustrated with photographs.

A Fine condition hardback book which is clean bright and tight in a Fine condition unclipped dustjacket with just a hint of fade to the spine. NB the picture (above right) of a more recent edition of the book is for illustration only.

‘Mike’ Crosley started training with the Fleet Air Arm on the very day of the Battle of Taranto and went on to serve aboard HMS Eagle on the notorious Malta convoy run, shooting down his first two enemy aircraft in a Sea Hurricane. Surviving Eagle’s sinking in August 1942, Mike graduated to Seafires – the Naval equivalent of the Spitfire – and flew this beautiful but often troublesome aircraft in Combat Air Patrols and ‘Ramrod’ strikes until the end of the war, by which time he had command of his own squadron.

From hilarious episodes during training and working up in the West Country and Scotland, through the Allied landings in North Africa during Operation Torch and an arctic convoy to Russia in which his carrier was so badly storm-damaged that it had to limp home with its flight deck virtually hanging loose from its hull, the author describes in vivid detail the experiences, the excitement and the terror of this type of flying. He finished the war, still flying Seafires, abroad HMS Implacable as part of the ‘forgotten’ British Pacific Fleet. Frank, often scathingly critical of ‘Their Lordships’ and others, side-splittingly funny one moment and desperately tragic the next, this is the true story of a young man thrown into a war which would first bring him together with his sweetheart and then separates them, which would bring comradeship, exhilaration and tragedy in almost equal amounts.

A classic in every sense of the word, this book has been republished many times since 1986 and has seen a great number of glowing reviews generated, coming from both historians and participants in the proceedings that the author so eloquently relays.

A great account of life as a Navy Fighter Pilot and a surprisingly scarce signed book.