David E. Fisher

Lord Hugh Dowding, who provided the organization and training that led to victory, has been all but ignored by U. S. biographers of Churchill and historians of the Battle of Britain. Yet his story is vital, both for its importance to the defense of Britain-indeed the entire free worldand for the intriguing character study that emerges from his ongoing conflict with Churchill and the British government during the crisis years of the empire.
Lord Hugh Dowding, Air Chief Marshall of the Royal Air Force, Head of Fighter Command, First Baron of Bentley Priory, lived in the grip of unseen spirits. In thrall of the supernatural world, he talked to the ghosts of his dead pilots, proclaimed that Hitler was defeated only by the personal intervention of God, and believed in the existence of fairies. How could it be that such a man should be put in charge of evaluating technical developments for the British air ministry? Yet it was he, fighting the inertia of the bureaucrats who ruled the Air Force, who brought the modern multi-gunned fighter into existence. And he insisted that his scientists investigate the mysterious invisible rays that would prove to be the salvation of Britain: radar.… (more)

Wild Blue collects the most gripping accounts of what some would call the greatest achievement of the century: controlled flight. Charles Lindbergh takes readers wing-walking in a barnstorming biplane; Ernest K. Gann describes how the nocturnal spell of copiloting a DC-2 at night is broken by the unexpected terror of ice on its wings; a young ace named Chuck Yeager shatters the sound barrier and then loses consciousness in a violently tumbling rocket-plane. From the soaring to the harrowing, from flying a Piper Cub over the Rockies at the age of 14 to a nighttime carrier approach with an anxious, rusty lieutenant, Wild Blue puts readers right in the cockpit.… (more)