Greatest Book on the Battle of Britain

Put it on the Chain Home, old boy

1. For the best and most comprehensive account of Dowding's creatione of the Fighter Command Headquarters, and its ramifications for the air defense of the United Kingdom, I am indebted to Peter Flint's "Dowding and Headquarters Fghter Command."

1. The best and most detailed account of the differences between the Bf 109 and the Spitfire and Hurricane is to be found in Wiliam Green's, "Augsburg Eagle :The Story of the Messerschmitt 109"

For their help and advice in researching the story of the Battle of Britain I am indebted to Len Deighton, whose own book "Fighter: The True Story of the Battle of Britain" remains the benchmark for anybody writing about these events..

..Richard Collier in his book on the Batlle of Britain, list some of the men who flew on August 15;
"Warrent Officer Edward Mayne, Royal Flying Corps veteran, at forty the oldest man to fly as a regular (allied) combatant in the battle, young Hugh Percy, an undergraduate fro Cambridge University who kept his logbook in Greek, New Zealander Mindy Blake, Doctor of Mathematics, who approached each combat like a quadratic equation, the Nizam of Hyderabad's former personal pilot, Derek Boitel-Gill, Randy Mettheson, ex-Argentine gaucho, Johhny Bryson, a former Canadian Mountie, Squadron Leader Aeneas Mac Donnell, offical head of the Glengarry Clan; and Red Tobin from Los Angeles, with the (Amercian) barnstormers, Andy and Shorty.."

but these were the more glamorous exceptions, of course.."

..Richard Hillary, who went straight from life as an Oxford undergraduate and intellectual to being a Spitfire pilot with 603 Squadron, and who would survive dreadful, disfiguring burns to write one of the most famous books about the RAF in World War II, "The Last Enemy", before death finally caught up with him, wrote of his Baptism of fire on August 15:

We ran into them at 18,000 feet, twenty yellow-nosed Messerschmitt 109's, about 500 feet above us. Our Squadron strength was eight, and as they came down on us we went into line astern and turned head on to them. Brian Carbury, who was leading the section, dropped the nose of his machine, and I could almost feel the leading Nazi pilot push forward on his stick to bring his guns to bear.

At the same moment Brian pulled back on his own control stick and led us over to them in a steep climbing turn to the left. In two vital seconds they had lost their advantage. I saw Brian let go a burst of fire at the leading plane, saw the pilot put his machine into a half roll, and knew that he was mine.

Automatically, I kicked the rudder to the left to get him at right angles, turned the gun button to "fire" and let go ina four second burst with full deflection. He came right through my sights and I saw the tracer from all eight guns thud home. For a second he seemed to hang motionless; then a jet of flame shot upwards and he spun out of sight...

It had happened. My first emotion was one of satisfaction... And then I had a feeeling of the essential rightness of it all. He was dead and I was alive; it could have so easily have been the other way round; and that somehow would have been right too. ..

Hough and Richard's, "The Battle of Britain"
Gilbert, Martin, "Finest Hour"

Duel of Eagles by Peter Townsend. Read many books on this subject and this is the best and most informative........written by someone who played a part in it!

BadBud

Greatest varies in terms of what you want in a book.

The short 300 page overview book I have previously posted a brief review here in the book forum; With Wings Like Eagles - Michael Korda



The publishers url is here: https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9780061984945/with-wings-like-eagles/

on the publishers webpage there is a link to "Read a Sample". On the page is goes to there is a link for the bibliography of the book.
The author has an extensive list of all the BOB revelant books.

(I would post them but my web browser security app NoScript won't allow the link..)

Also his notes have some useful quick tips, for example;
[quote=Chapter 3 notes]
1. For the best and most comprehensive account of Dowding's creatione of the Fighter Command Headquarters, and its ramifications for the air defense of the United Kingdom, I am indebted to Peter Flint's "Dowding and Headquarters Fghter Command."

1. The best and most detailed account of the differences between the Bf 109 and the Spitfire and Hurricane is to be found in Wiliam Green's, "Augsburg Eagle :The Story of the Messerschmitt 109"

I've read many of these and Townsend's book is easily my favorite. I breezed through it twice.

I liked the way Townssend began all the way back with World War One and showed the side by side developement histories of both air forces.