THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

“The best book you will ever read about Britain’s greatest warplane.” —Patrick Bishop, bestselling author of Fighter Boys

The iconic Spitfire found fame during the darkest early days of World War II. But what happened to the fighter aircraft and its crews beyond the Battle of Britain, and why is it still so loved today?

In late spring 1940, Nazi Germany’s domination of Europe looked unstoppable. With the British Isles in easy reach since the fall of France, Adolf Hitler was convinced that Great Britain would be defeated in the skies over her southern coast, confident his Messerschmitts and Heinkels would outclass anything the Royal Air Force threw at them. What Hitler hadn’t planned for was the agility and resilience of a marvel of British engineering that would quickly pass into legend—the Spitfire.

Bestselling author John Nichol’s passionate portrait of this magnificent fighter aircraft, its many innovations and updates, and the people who flew and loved them, carries you beyond the dogfights over Kent and Sussex. Spanning the full global reach of the Spitfire’s deployment during WWII—from Malta to North Africa and the Far East, then over the D-Day beaches—it is always accessible, effortlessly entertaining, and full of extraordinary spirit.

Featuring edge-of-your-seat stories and heart-stopping firsthand accounts of battling pilots forced to bail out over occupied territory; of sacrifice and wartime love; of aristocratic female flyers, and of the mechanics who braved the Nazi onslaught to keep the aircraft in battle-ready condition, Nichols delivers a hair-raising and moving wartime history of the iconic Spitfire, including a cast of heroic characters that make you want to stand up and cheer.