The author found the reality of the Second World War very different from the world of Captain Ball V.C. It was dirty blankets and Nissen hut obscenities. Then the golden doors opened and he found himself in peacetime California, learning to fly between long weekends in Hollywood where he hob-nobbed with his idols like Ginger Rogers, Olivia de Havilland and Kay Francis. Back in Europe, the picture changed once more. The author flew and flew, mastering the Hurricane and the Spitfire, and the ranting Typhoon. At last he found himself on nodding terms with the ghost of Captain Ball as well as on kissing-cousin terms with the glamorous stars of movie-land. His life story makes an amusing and exciting wartimr autobiography. Over a long and successful career as a naval historian, Richard Hough wrote numerous bokks and best-selling biographies of both Earl Mountbatten of Burma and his wife Edwina. 16 pages b/w photos
