The SKY SUSPENDED

With a bookplate tipped in signed by

Squadron Leader JRA ‘Jim’ Bailey CBE DFC

264 & 85 Squadrons Battle of Britain

Bloomsbury Revised Edition 1990.  184 pages plus photographs

Fine condition hardback book in green boards with a fine condition unclipped dustjacket.  The book is clean, bright, tight and feels unread. The bookplate is tipped in by its left edge. 

On the outbreak of war Jim Bailey was called up from the Oxford University Air Squadron and during the Battle of Britain flew Defiants with 264 Squadron at Duxford. On August 28 Bailey flew in the squadron’s last action before 264 was withdrawn from daytime fighting. His gunner damaged a He111 bomber but their Defiant was so badly damaged that Bailey had to make a forced landing.

Soon afterwards, Bailey was posted to Peter Townsend’s 85 Squadron though hunting enemy aircraft in the dark without airborne radar was a thankless task for a Hurricane pilot. In July 1941 Bailey was posted to fly Havocs experimentally fitted with Turbinlite airborne searchlights and then onto radar-equipped Beaufighters hunting enemy reconnaissance aircraft, bagging a Ju88 and damaging another. Later he received command of a Flight in 600 Squadron in Italy. Fighting over Anzio, Rome and Elba, he shot down four bombers and one fighter at night.

Postwar, Bailey had an interesting writing and publishing career founding Drum, the largest circulation magazine in South Africa. He passed away in 2000.

This memoir is one of the same thoughtful kind as Richard Hillary’s ‘The Last Enemy’ and Saint-Exupery’s ‘Wind, Sand and Stars’.  It is a beautifully written book which explores the human condition and the wonder and magnificence of flight.

A super copy of this often overlooked Battle of Britain memoir complete with Bailey’s neat, scarce signature.