Why read No Ordinary Pilot?

Book cover of No Ordinary Pilot: One Young Man’s Extraordinary Exploits in World War II

Book description

After a lifetime in the RAF, Group Captain Bob Allen, finally allowed his children and grandchildren to see his official flying log. It contained the line: 'KILLED WHILST ON OPERATIONS'. He refused to answer any further questions, leaving instead a memoir of his life during World War II.

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Why read it?

1 author picked No Ordinary Pilot as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Michael Tappenden

Author

This book is written about my uncle Bob Allen. He was a career RAF officer, not easy to know, quite distant and intimidating, and he had a secret.

This is a true story that lay deliberately hidden for fifty years until unearthed on his death by the author. I say deliberately because of the need – common-felt amongst survivors of war – to remain tight-lipped. Even when his hand-written memoirs were discovered, they had been written in the third person. But this is the story of an ordinary man caught up in extraordinary times. He joined the RAF aged nineteen,…

From Michael's list on The best war novels look beyond glory and victory to show the awful impact on the individual regardless of nationality.