The conflict within

On an early page of this new book on the Battle of Britain, Patrick Bishop describes one of the first instances of aerial combat when, on 25 August 1914, Lieutenant Rabagliati of the Royal Flying Corps shot down an unnamed German: one pilot was armed with a .303 rifle, the other with a Mauser pistol with a wooden shoulder stock.

It's curious that we're not told what type of machines the two combatants were flying, but the omission can be seen as emblematic of the author's approach to the subject. His interest lies not in the technical side of the war in the air - in comparing, for example, the turning circles of the Spitfire and the Me 109 - nor in the strategy of either side, nor indeed in the historical significance of the battle. Above all else, his attention, as his title suggests, is focused on the pilots themselves.

In the summer of 1940, 2,917 men fought in Fighter Command. Five hundred and forty-four were killed at the time. Another 795 died in the course of the war. Most never shot anything down. Between July and November 1940 fewer than 900 pilots claimed victories. They were mainly British, but there were also South Africans, Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians, a number of Poles and Czechs, and a few Americans.

The majority were aged between 19 and 26. The older, regular officers, accustomed to flying in rigid formation, and unable to adapt to a way of fighting that appeared in no textbook, were usually the first to go. Two-thirds were officers, a third sergeant pilots, who wore scratchier uniforms and didn't have morning tea brought to them by a batman.

They flew Spitfires and Hurricanes, and a few poor sods flew the Defiant, a death-trap designed according to the First World War belief that movable guns were better than fixed ones.

It was soon withdrawn from the front line, as was the German Ju 87, the Stuka dive bomber, which, though it might have terrified civilians in Spain and Eastern Europe, proved easy meat over England in the daytime. They shot down, or were shot down by, Me 109s and 110s, Dornier 17s, Heinkel 111s and Junkers 88s.

Many pilots were selected because of their sporting prowess, which was thought to go hand in hand with flying ability, though Denys Gillam, who commanded two fighter squadrons, remarked that the best "tended to be rather weedy".

Another commander, Brian Kingcome, thought it very fortunate that there were no psychological or aptitude tests in the selection process, which most would have failed. They wore silk scarves to stop their necks being chafed by the constant turns of the head, and didn't do up the top button of their tunics.

Many went out with Waafs from their station who, if they worked in the ops room, might hear their boyfriend's last words coming over the radio as his plane went down.

They flew two, three, even four sorties a day, always under immense stress, always fatigued beyond belief: one pilot, at home on a weekend leave, slept for 36 hours without waking.