EAGLE DAY: THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN.**

US,8vo HB+dw/dj,2nd edn.NFINE/VG+.No owner inscrptn,unclipped dw/dj. Colour,pictorial illustrated wrap-round artwork by Paul Nash dw/dj; with minimal shelf-wear and creasing to lower edge which has a sellotape, internally repaired,closed tear to foot of spine/ backstrip to upper wrap and internally sellotape repaired top edge which is slightly heavier creased with some closed nicks+tears - no loss though.Top+fore-edges generally clean,bottom edge coloured,contents bright,tight and clean.Beige paper-covered bds with a pale beige cloth blind spine with bright, stamped gilt letters to spine/backstrip and generally clean plain white eps.US,8vo HB+ dw/dj,1st edn,7-256pp includes half-title+title pages,b/w photograph illustrated contents list, preface,double-page contemporary b/w photograph to Chapter 1,10 chapters,profuse contemporary b/w photographs throughout the text,order of battle 13 August,a biblio,photograph credits,and an index. For six crucial weeks in the summer of 1940, the eyes of the world were on London and southeastern England.There the fate of Britain hung in the balance as a few hundred RAF pilots and aircraft (many of the planes obsolete) struggled against staggering odds, against fear, fatigue and desperation,to turn the tide of war against Germany.It was that battle in the skies,the Battle of Britain, that moved Winston Churchill to say, "Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few." On August 13 - Eagle Day - the Luftwaffe began an all-out assault aimed at annihilating the RAF and preparing the way for Nazi Germany's invasion of England.A month later, on September 15, Nazis planes attacked in their greatest strength and numbers but were met with resistance so fierce it has now become legendary. The weeks encompassed by those two days are the theme of Collier's vivid and suspenseful narrative.Piecing together hundreds of individual recollections,Collier brings alive the courage and intense drama that marked the battle.Here are the experiences of such men and women as Pilot Officer Geoffrey Page,who bailed out of a blazing plane and suffered severe burns;Red Tobin,the American pilot who blacked out over the sea and came to with only 1,000 feet to spare;the ground crews and women's auxiliaries at air bases like Biggin Hill and Manston, who endured some of the worst bombing;Air Chief Marshal Dowding,who faced awesome responsibilities; Londoners and farmers;and the German pilots whose skill and determination sometimes ended in disaster. To write this definitive story of the most fateful weeks of the Battle of Britain, Collier employed a staff of thirteen researchers.They travelled some 30,000 miles in England,America and on the Continent,and put together over 400 eyewitness accounts of what happened in those few weeks.The story is told from both the British and German points of view.Many of the participants describe events in their own words.On its first publication,the London Daily Mirror said of 'Eagle Day' "For sheer excitement it leaves most thrillers on the tarmac." This new edition is enriched with over 100 dramatic photographs of the epic conflict.
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