Bøker av Colin Dunford Wood

A fascinating eyewitness account of some of the lesser-known episodes in World War Two, written by an Indian Army officer turned RAF pilot. Full of self-deprecating humour, Dunford Wood's war diaries record adventure, boredom, terror, love and more. Accompanied by photographs and maps, his adventures began on the North-West Frontier of British India in early 1939 and continued through operations in Iraq, Burma, China, Holland and Germany. Over this period he piloted over 100 aircraft types, including Audaxes, Lysanders, Hurricanes and Spitfires. He was one of 39 pupil pilots who fought at Habbaniya in May 1941; he was shot down by friendly fire in Burma in 1942; he flew the last Hurricane out in the face of the marauding Japanese, before returning to Burma as part of the Arakan campaign in 1943; and he flew Spitfires in support of the Allied crossing of the Rhine in 1945. Of 60 Indian Army officers who originally volunteered to transfer to the RAF when war broke out, he was one of just two survivors. It's an incredible tale.

Following on from Volume 1, this is a fascinating and unique first-hand account of war in the air with the RAF in Burma and along the Burma Road to China, flying Lysanders and Hurricane Mk IIs alongside the American Volunteer Group, the 'Flying Tigers'. During the chaotic British withdrawal in early 1942, the rapidly depleted RAF units frog-leapt from one makeshift landing ground to another under constant harassment by Japanese Zeros and Navy 'O's. A year later he returned to Burma with a detachment of Hurricanes in support of the disastrous Arakan Campaign.In between being shot down by friendly fire and flying the last Hurricane out of Burma before the advancing Japanese, Colin Dunford Wood details life in India, with a trip to Egypt just before El Alamein to train on the new Hurricanes IIDs.Colin had an extraordinary war. He was only one of two survivors of 60 Indian army recruits who joined the RAF in WW2 where, despite his poor eyesight and having to cheat on his medical, he went on to fight in four theatres of war: the North-West Frontier, Iraq, Burma and Germany.These diaries are a vivid portrait of war across several continents and campaigns. Rather than follow the ordered chronology of the tidy historian, who has points to make and theories to prove, the narrative follows the haphazard progress of war on the ground and in the air - encompassing fear, boredom, incompetence, luck, romance, and horror - all interlaced with a self-deprecating humour that kept the man sane.

Colin Dunford Wood had an extraordinary war. He was only one of two survivors of 60 Indian army recruits who joined the RAF in WW2 where, despite his poor eyesight and having to cheat on his medical, he went on to fight in four theatres of war: the North-West Frontier, Iraq, Burma and Germany.This first volume contains a unique record of two little-known campaigns: the fight against the Fakir of Ipi on the North West Frontier; and a rare first-hand account of the Battle of Habbaniya in Iraq, an episode that came very close to driving a wedge through the heart of the British Empire at one of the most perilous junctures of its history. Just 39 trainee pilots and their RAF instructors, in ancient biplanes, stood between the Iraqis and the Luftwaffe, and Britain's Middle East oil supply. Pilot cadet Colin was one of them.