Out of the Blue

One of the outstanding fighter pilots of World War II, and a distinguished author, Laddie Lucas has compiled this astonishing collection of first-hand stories about the part played by luck in air warfare over a period of five decades. A truly international volume, drawn principally from unpublished sources and relying on personal accounts of airmen all over the world, Out of the Blue follows the history of war in the air from the pioneering days of combat over the Western Front in World War I to the sophisticated aerial contests of the Vietnam War.
Beginning in 1917 with Lord Balfour's miraculous safe landing after an extraordinary ejection from his crushed bi-plane, Out of the Blue is a breathtaking assembly of stories - some horrific, some humorous, some frankly incredible - told with extraordinary freshness and vividness by some of the legendary names and unknown heroes of three wars. Air Marshal Sir Edward Chilton reconstructs in riveting detail the epic `Channel dash' by three German battlecruisers in broad daylight through the Straits of Dover in 1942. Group Captain Len Trent VC tells how the luck of the draw saved his life in the Great Escape from Stalag Luft III in 1944. Japanese fighter pilot Yutaka Yokota, who volunteered as a 'human torpedo' in the Pacific war, recalls how mechanical trouble prevented him from making the supreme sacrifice for his Emperor. Meanwhile, a United States Air Force officer, Col. Kenneth W. Cordier, tells how he received a direct hit from a Soviet ground-to air missile in the Vietnam War - and survived.
The volume has its share of bizarre and amusing moments too. Here are shamefaced confessions of 'own goals' by off-course bomber pilots, the intriguing tale of an Australian air gunner's clairvoyant mongrel Smudge, and the account by a great USAF fighter leader of the last war of how his ability to blow impressive smoke rings from a cigar may have saved his life.


edited by "Laddie"Lucas
Published by Hutchinson 1985 1st edition. 317pp some b&w drawings, ind. 16x24 edges slightly bumped otherwise very good, including d/j.






Note:
"Long" descriptions, where shown, may have been taken from the book's dust jacket notes, and as such are relevant to the date of publication (e.g. any references to "new edition" "previously unpublished photographs" etc.) and not the present.