WAR EAGLES

Presentation on the title page to Raymond Baxter from

Flight Lieutenant James ‘Jim’ Gray DFC
71 Squadron

To Ray Baxter
who flew ‘wingman’
for me long ago
(Sicily 1943).
Best wishes Jim Gray
30 Jan ’86

Both Jim Gray and Raymond Baxter served in 93 Squadron, commanded by Battle of Britain veteran Wilf Sizer during the Sicily campaign.  Initially at Hal Far, Malta, in the spring of 1943 before moving forward onto captured, rudimentary airstrips in Sicily during Operation Husky in July 1943, 93 Squadron operated as a tightly integrated single unit.  The squadron’s primary objective in Sicily was providing collective, continuous umbrella air cover for Allied shipping, beachheads and strafing Axis troops.

Eagle Publishing revised edition, 1983. 369 pages plus an excellent selection of photos and useful appendices detailing the Squadron Roster, victories, a glossary of RAF slang and an epilogue detailing what happened to surviving Eagles after the war.

Fine condition hardback book with blue covers and a silver gilt Eagle badge embossed on the front cover, The dustjacket is complete with a repaired closed tear and some fading to the spine and the edge of the front cover. 

From the dustjacket blurb: ‘This is the story of the American pilots in the famous Eagle Squadron of the RAF.  For the first time the British Air Ministry has opened its official records on the Eagle squadron; these together with the countless interviews Colonel Childers had with the pilots themselves, form the basis of this thrilling true story of aerial warfare.

Above all else, it is the personal history of that group of courageous young Americans who joined the RAF because they loved flying and because they couldn’t wait for the US to get into the war.  How they were trained, how they took part in raids, how they spent their leisure time – these are only a few of the many subjects covered in a book which contains laughter and tears, horseplay and tragedy, modesty and heroics’.

American Jim Gray (1919-2009) volunteered as an RAF fighter pilot and was posted to 71 (Eagle) Squadron flying the Spitfire V. Unlike most of his colleagues, he elected to stay with the RAF when the Eagle Squadrons transferred to the USAAF, serving in the Mediterranean theatre. He was shot down in Northern Italy in early 1945 and was a PoW in Stalag Luft I until the camp was liberated. Post-war, he was a commercial airline captain and served as the official historian for the Eagle Squadrons Association.

Raymond Baxter OBE (1922–2006) was a prominent British television presenter, radio commentator, and World War II Spitfire pilot. He is remembered as the host of the BBC’s flagship science and technology programme, Tomorrow’s World, which he presented from 1965 to 1977 and for his Farnborough commentaries. Before becoming one of the most trusted voices in British broadcasting, Baxter flew Spitfires across Europe and the Mediterranean, being shot down over Sicily, evading capture and returning to active service. In March 1945 he took part in Operation Big Ben against the Shell-Mex building in The Hague.

A fascinating book about the famous Eagle Squadron which captured the public’s imagination on both sides of the Atlantic. It is enhanced by a unique association between distinguished wartime comrades.