Book Review: Spitfire Diary by E.A.W. Smith
First-hand WWII combat histories are plentiful, and each one is a unique window into the author’s personal war – even if the broader conflict described usually overlaps with hundreds if not thousands of other accounts. But the modestly titled Spitfire Diary is one of the most captivating – and certainly the best I’ve read since Geoffery Wellum’s seminal First Light.
E.A.W (Ted) Smith spent five-and-a-half years in the RAF, joining up as a 17-year-old in 1940 and leaving after war’s end to begin a career in advertising. He emigrated to the USA in 1948, later running radio stations in Texas. Almost 40 years after he left the UK, he began the research that led to Spitfire Diary – a combination of his personal story in diary form, and the official record of 127 Squadron, the Spitfire unit with which he flew after D-Day.
The book covers Smith’s year of active duty in 1944-45 in astonishing detail. He has a flair for telling the story in a way that is on the one hand matter-of-fact, but on the other, emotionally engaging. The two-sides-to-the-story format – the squadron records following his own diary entries – breaks the flow but helps to root his recollections in reality.
It’s not clear whether the passages of intercom dialogue from combat sequences were written right after the event, or decades later, but they feel entirely authentic. In these moments, you are completely transported to the cockpit of the author’s Spitfire Mk.IX.
For me, the highlight was rare insight into the human behaviours and relationships – good and bad – that forge and splinter in the heat of battle. Several incidents cause a sharp intake of breath, for example the painful sequence of events that turned the funeral of Smith’s best friend, Peter Attwooll, into a debacle.
I loved this book. It is less polished than some other memoirs I have read, so perhaps that is why it is not as renowned as some other accounts, Wellum’s included. But Smith’s skill as a communicator enabled him to eloquently, and without a trace of hyperbole, reveal in full the highs and horrors of his wartime experience.
Spitfire Diary
by E.A.W. Smith
William Kimber, 1988. ISBN 0-7183-0692-9
Find it on eBay
E.A.W (Ted) Smith spent five-and-a-half years in the RAF, joining up as a 17-year-old in 1940 and leaving after war’s end to begin a career in advertising. He emigrated to the USA in 1948, later running radio stations in Texas. Almost 40 years after he left the UK, he began the research that led to Spitfire Diary – a combination of his personal story in diary form, and the official record of 127 Squadron, the Spitfire unit with which he flew after D-Day.
The book covers Smith’s year of active duty in 1944-45 in astonishing detail. He has a flair for telling the story in a way that is on the one hand matter-of-fact, but on the other, emotionally engaging. The two-sides-to-the-story format – the squadron records following his own diary entries – breaks the flow but helps to root his recollections in reality.
It’s not clear whether the passages of intercom dialogue from combat sequences were written right after the event, or decades later, but they feel entirely authentic. In these moments, you are completely transported to the cockpit of the author’s Spitfire Mk.IX.
For me, the highlight was rare insight into the human behaviours and relationships – good and bad – that forge and splinter in the heat of battle. Several incidents cause a sharp intake of breath, for example the painful sequence of events that turned the funeral of Smith’s best friend, Peter Attwooll, into a debacle.
I loved this book. It is less polished than some other memoirs I have read, so perhaps that is why it is not as renowned as some other accounts, Wellum’s included. But Smith’s skill as a communicator enabled him to eloquently, and without a trace of hyperbole, reveal in full the highs and horrors of his wartime experience.
Spitfire Diary
by E.A.W. Smith
William Kimber, 1988. ISBN 0-7183-0692-9
Find it on eBay