Hugh Popham joined the Fleet Air Arm in the summer of 1940 and was soon in training as a pilot at HMS Vincent and then Yeovilton; thereafter his wartime career as a naval pilot took him to the far corners of the world, notably to the Indian Ocean where he had to contend against the Japanese. His story of a naval fighter pilot having to do his best with hopelessly inadequate planes. First the Sea Hurricanes, and then the Supermarine Seafires, proved to be less than brilliant machines, the Seafire proving far too fragile for the rigours of carrier operations. But it is this story, incorporating the kind of detail that is missing from many wartime memoirs, that makes this book so fascinating. His war years on Indomitable, Illustrious, Campania and Striker are described with a modest charm that is so typical of a generation that adapted to their wartime roles with humour, energy and, in the end, great bravery. AUTHOR: Hugh Popham was descended form a distinguished family of naval men ? his most illustrious forebear established the Popham code was used at the battle of Trafalgar. He wrote widely on naval matters after the war and was also a published poet and the editor of Erskine Childers' sailing logs. ILLUSTRATIONS 18 b/w photographs cmaps *
