"Dear Johnnie - I did not know that you could read and write!" wrote one famous fighter pilot to another. Fortunately many a Johnnie-Head-in-Air could indeed write. As Gavin Lyall points out in his preface, "in too many famous actions, particularly towards the beginning of the war, hardly anybody survived to tell the personal story." Linked by narrative sections, a complete picture of the war is built up: from the endless patrols of the Battle for the Atlantic, through Britain and Europe to the Desert and the Far East. Nor are the groundcrew, the instructors, ferry pilots, even Air Ministry instructions, forgotten.