THEIR FINEST HOUR - The Battle of Britain Remembered by Kaplan, Philip & Collier, Richard

New York 1989, Abbeville, First US edition, hard bound in dust jacket, 10x10, FINE/FINE CONDITION, 224 pages, hundreds of B&W and color illustrations, appendice, index.  .....................................................................Fifty years ago, in the blue skies of a hate. English summer. history's first great air battle was fought. Those whom Churchill called "The Few," thwarted Hitler's preparation for an invasion of Britain.While it was happening, not mans' people thought of it as 'The Battle of Britain," Churchill had used the phrase but once publicly, in his reference o die fall of France.The average fighter pilot defending Britain in dial sunnier of 1940 was a bit inure than 20 years of age. He was unmarried, had not quite completed his formal education and had an exceptionally keen interest in fast cars and aeroplanes.He had joined the R.A.F. less than ten months prior to being posted to his operational squadron, and had less than 20 flying hours on the I Hurricane or Spitfire types lie would fly in the "period of rather intense activity" later to be known as The Battle of Britain.The fight was played out in a dramatic 15-week series of aerial combats, many of which happened directly above towns and villages. Such events have too often been re-told far larger than life. THEIR FINEST 1-101W. through its visual images and compelling recollections from Allied pilots. Luftwaffe pilots, ground crew and civilians, paints a trite picture of the Battle. and of the BLITZ, in human tern is and exactly life-size.In a journey to the airfields and other locales, the hook takes its reader hack to wartime England through the memories of people who recall what it was like to be there and through vintage photos front scrapbooks and other private collections. THEIR FINEST HOUR also features over 100 color photographs made in recent years that show locations that play(.(] a vital role in the. Battle, as they are today. Many of them are little changed.