THE ODDS AGAINST US : Memoirs of Aerial Combat at Night during the Battle of Britain by Townsend, Group Captain Peter, RAF

New York 1987, Morrow, US First edition, hard bound in dust jacket, 6x9, VG/VG condition, *( light dj wear), 240 pages, illustrated, bibliog, index ( also published in UK as Duel in the Dark). The Odds Against Us is destined to become one of the classic accounts of the Battle of Britain.-----------------------------------------Group Captain Peter Townsend, D.S.O., DFC. and Bar, recalls with vivid intensity the many months he flew and fought both day and night during the time the Royal Air Force was stretched to the limit and barely managed to defeat a more powerful German Luftwaffe, and prevent the invasion of England in World War ll.The Odds Against Us is more than just a book about aerial combat. Townsend has tracked down residents of London who survived the German raids to tell their incredible true stories of endurance and bravery He has also located the German fliers with whom he dueled miles above the spires of Parliament to get their own personal accounts. Thus The Odds Against Us is unique in its narrative scope and its understanding of what happened to those who suffered the cruel twists of fate created by the first all-out warfare against civilians in modern times.Townsend's felicitous writing drives home again and again the truth of just how much better the Germans were prepared for war than the British. His casual attitude understates-yet highlights-the desperation with which the RAF met the German attackers. Not only were flyers such as Townsend the best flyers the British could offer, there were so few of them that they had to fly both day and night under harrowing conditions.Their sleek Hawker Hurricane fighters that sped through the daytime skies with incredible grace proved to be unfit for nighttime combat. They had no radar; radio control from the ground was skimpy. They had to take off and land on unlit grass runways. The cockpits were unheated; throttle controls and gun mechanisms froze solid. On occasion, when landing at night, Townsend would scrape the ice off the cockpit canopy with his fingernails in order to see. The hazards of night flying all too frequently proved more deadly for the RAF than did actual combat.Behind the scenes of battle, Townsend also tells a story of the frantic race for technology the Wizard War-that would ultimately render control of the night skies to the RAF. An entertaining, exciting autobiographical epic.Group Captain Peter Townsend, D.S.O., D.EC. and Bar, was piloting Vildebeest Torpedo planes in Singapore just before the outbreak of World War II. Because of his fighterpilot skills, he was sent home just in time for the Battle of Britain. He shot down the first German aircraft to crash on English soil, and, at age twenty-five, was commanding a squadron. Two years later he was in charge of a wing. He was credited with a large number of enemy planes destroyed and was shot down himself twice. He is the author of several highly acclaimed books including Duel of Eagles