Wing Leader

First edition, first impression.  320pp, with monochrome portrait plate frontispiece and further monochrome plates interleafed in text.  8vo.  Blue cloth-covered boards with gilt lettering to spine.  8vo.  Cloth is a little rounded at spine ends, slightly worn.  Some spotting on text block edges.  Internally neat, clean, bright and tight barring a previous owner’s name neatly pencilled on the front free endpaper.  In its original illustrated dust wrapper, not price clipped.  a little bumped on edges,  and slightly shelf worn.  Dust wrapper now protected in a Mylar-style sleeve, fitted without the use of tape or adhesives.

A military biography, the compelling story of a young civil engineer who joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve in 1939 as a weekend flyer and finished the war as a the top-scoring Allied fighter pilot with thirty-eight confirmed victories.  Mobilised at the start of the war Johnnie Johnson completed his training and joined a badly mauled fighter squadron during the Battle of Britain: except for a six-month rest, he flew with fighter squadrons until V E day, receiving numerous British and overseas awards.