CHESHIRE V.C.

Signed by Leonard Cheshire on the front end paper

“With all best wishes
Leonard Cheshire
Salisbury, 16th June 1956”

Published by Evans. First edition, reprint before publication, November 1954.  217 pages plus photographs.

Fine condition hardback book. Clean, bright and tight with a Very Good condition unclipped dustjacket with just a little wear at the top and tail of the spine. It looks smart in a protective wrapper.

Group Captain Leonard Cheshire had a reputation second to none. This was the first biography of the man who at twenty-eight had won the VC, a triple DSO, and the DFC  with Bomber Command during the Second World War and had also witnessed the use of the atomic bomb.

After the war his attempts to found self-governing communities for ex-servicemen ended in financial disaster but helped to settle his lonely struggle for religious certainty and eventually his charity work flourished.

Although not the most comprehensive account of Cheshire’s life as it was written in 1954, the contemporaneous, clear Cheshire signature with an undedicated inscription makes this book rather special.