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Spitfire: The Biography
It is difficult to overestimate the excitement that accompanied the birth of the Spitfire. An aircraft imbued with balletic grace and extraordinary versatility, it was powered by a piston engine and a propeller, yet came tantalisingly close to breaking the sound barrier. First flown in 1936, the Spitfire soon came to symbolize Britain's defiance of Nazi Germany in the summer of 1940. Flown by pilots of many nations, it saw service as far afield as Australia and the Soviet Union.
Spitfire: The Biography is a celebration of a great British invention, of the men and women who flew it and supported its development, and of the industry that manufactured both the aircraft and the Rolls-Royce engines that powered it. It is also about a boy who wished he could have been a Second World War fighter pilot and who was later able to fly the aircraft that took his father into combat.
276 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
July 13, 2022
Each time I sat down to read this, it was like someone slipped a Xanax into my cup of tea. My eyes would become heavy and lost in a haze of specifications and measurements, as I struggled to read more than ten pages before needing bed.
Spitfires and the Battle of Britain are subjects that have interested me since childhood – so I was surprised at how bored I was during sections of this. I didn’t expect the author’s political views to be injected at times either, particularly the introduction. They felt out of place in a book on Spitfires, and quite puzzling to someone, like myself, who isn't from the UK.
Spitfire: The Biography is a beautifully designed book. It feels good in your hands and has a great layout, nice font, high quality paper, with pictures and icons that effectively portray the planes and their people. All this perhaps due to Jonathan Glancey’s background in architecture and design. But it’s also a book riddled with tangents (some more interesting than others) and guilty of fact-bombing in a dry textbook-like way.
While I understand this is a biography of a machine, it still had too much technical detail (overwhelmingly so). The book is undoubtedly at its best when talking about the Spitfire in action and particularly the stories of the Aces. Its role in winning the Battle of Britain and how it compared alongside Germany’s aircraft was interesting, but too much time was given to mundane topics – I’m looking at you, Schneider Trophy (an aircraft race held between the 1910s-1930s). I was not surprised to learn the author has since published an entire book on that particular subject.
Reading this made me want to re-watch old films like Battle of Britain, First of the Few and Reach for the Sky. These got mentioned later in the book (he slammed the lot of them) when Glancey talked about the cultural impact of Spitfires. I can’t say he would make a good film critic.
The personal stories of those who designed, flew and died in Spitfires were what kept me reading. The story of designer RJ Mitchell was intriguing and left me wanting more. The author would later say, “RJ Mitchell is remarkably ill-served by biographers.” Some further research by Glancey could’ve easily corrected this.
I learnt a lot despite its dry delivery; in particular about V1 rockets (glad I wasn't tasked with ‘tipping them off balance’ with my plane’s wing), as well as the role of women in both manufacturing and flying the planes from factories to airfields. The book excelled when this human element was highlighted.
“Many Spitfires, along with their young and inexperienced pilots, were destroyed within a day or two of going into battle.”
While there was fascinating information to be found in Spitfire: The Biography, it required one to sift through the sea of data and detail all too often. I would recommend it only for serious plane buffs and military nerds.
“The Spitfire had been a warrior for all seasons, and had fought around the world. Well before its retirement, it had become a symbol of freedom - and a legend.”
It feels strange to be sentimental about a book that was occasionally a slog, but my dad gifted this to me on my 18th birthday. Many thanks Dad! His inscription was the best part. “Just like the young Spitfire pilots of the Battle of Britain era, if you adopt their courage, spirit and commitment, you will achieve anything you want in life.”
Spitfires and the Battle of Britain are subjects that have interested me since childhood – so I was surprised at how bored I was during sections of this. I didn’t expect the author’s political views to be injected at times either, particularly the introduction. They felt out of place in a book on Spitfires, and quite puzzling to someone, like myself, who isn't from the UK.
Spitfire: The Biography is a beautifully designed book. It feels good in your hands and has a great layout, nice font, high quality paper, with pictures and icons that effectively portray the planes and their people. All this perhaps due to Jonathan Glancey’s background in architecture and design. But it’s also a book riddled with tangents (some more interesting than others) and guilty of fact-bombing in a dry textbook-like way.
While I understand this is a biography of a machine, it still had too much technical detail (overwhelmingly so). The book is undoubtedly at its best when talking about the Spitfire in action and particularly the stories of the Aces. Its role in winning the Battle of Britain and how it compared alongside Germany’s aircraft was interesting, but too much time was given to mundane topics – I’m looking at you, Schneider Trophy (an aircraft race held between the 1910s-1930s). I was not surprised to learn the author has since published an entire book on that particular subject.
Reading this made me want to re-watch old films like Battle of Britain, First of the Few and Reach for the Sky. These got mentioned later in the book (he slammed the lot of them) when Glancey talked about the cultural impact of Spitfires. I can’t say he would make a good film critic.
The personal stories of those who designed, flew and died in Spitfires were what kept me reading. The story of designer RJ Mitchell was intriguing and left me wanting more. The author would later say, “RJ Mitchell is remarkably ill-served by biographers.” Some further research by Glancey could’ve easily corrected this.
I learnt a lot despite its dry delivery; in particular about V1 rockets (glad I wasn't tasked with ‘tipping them off balance’ with my plane’s wing), as well as the role of women in both manufacturing and flying the planes from factories to airfields. The book excelled when this human element was highlighted.
“Many Spitfires, along with their young and inexperienced pilots, were destroyed within a day or two of going into battle.”
While there was fascinating information to be found in Spitfire: The Biography, it required one to sift through the sea of data and detail all too often. I would recommend it only for serious plane buffs and military nerds.
“The Spitfire had been a warrior for all seasons, and had fought around the world. Well before its retirement, it had become a symbol of freedom - and a legend.”
It feels strange to be sentimental about a book that was occasionally a slog, but my dad gifted this to me on my 18th birthday. Many thanks Dad! His inscription was the best part. “Just like the young Spitfire pilots of the Battle of Britain era, if you adopt their courage, spirit and commitment, you will achieve anything you want in life.”
August 26, 2023
You's be forgiven for thinking that a book about R.J. Mitchell's iconic fighter, and written by a self-confessed enthusiast, couldn't fail, right? Well...
There are two main problems with the book - firstly, Mr Gleavey has bafflingly decided to include any number of asides to show us just how clever about everything he really is, which upsets the flow of the narrative, and secondly, it really is all over the place.. The summer of 1940 is covered, with irritating asides, in 37 pages, but this includes six and a half pages on the vital work of the Air Transport Auxiliary*, while the Spitfire's involvement in the entirety of the rest of the Second World War - that's the rest of the war in Europe, North Africa, the Mediterranean, Russia, the Fat Eat and the Pacific, gets (wait for it) another whopping 37 pages. Compare this with a baffling chapter comparing the Spit with it's contemporaries and opponents (be amazed, the Spitfire's better than everything). You can't make this up.
In the whole, avoid, and pick up John Nichol's love letter to the Spitfire instead. Or Leo McKinstry's. I haven't actually read that one, but out can't be worse than this.
* Yes, important, and deserving of coverage, but not to detract from the Few, ffs.
There are two main problems with the book - firstly, Mr Gleavey has bafflingly decided to include any number of asides to show us just how clever about everything he really is, which upsets the flow of the narrative, and secondly, it really is all over the place.. The summer of 1940 is covered, with irritating asides, in 37 pages, but this includes six and a half pages on the vital work of the Air Transport Auxiliary*, while the Spitfire's involvement in the entirety of the rest of the Second World War - that's the rest of the war in Europe, North Africa, the Mediterranean, Russia, the Fat Eat and the Pacific, gets (wait for it) another whopping 37 pages. Compare this with a baffling chapter comparing the Spit with it's contemporaries and opponents (be amazed, the Spitfire's better than everything). You can't make this up.
In the whole, avoid, and pick up John Nichol's love letter to the Spitfire instead. Or Leo McKinstry's. I haven't actually read that one, but out can't be worse than this.
* Yes, important, and deserving of coverage, but not to detract from the Few, ffs.
Read
August 2, 2011By the age of 42 Mitchell who designed the Spitfire prototype was dead but he bequeathed the world an aircraft that was central to the defence of Britain and taking the fight against fascism to the heart of the Third Reich. This easy to read but informative book introduces the aircraft novice to the background to the Spitfires development, its role in WWII, its competitors, its development, the people who flew them and its post war use. There is also an interesting chapter on the Spitfire in cultural iconography. The book smashes myths while reinforcing truths, basically in the vein of it was a damn fine creation that doesn't need fabrications about its prowess. A great little book that gave me what I wanted without getting bogged down in technical detail that would have been lost quickly in my leaky memory. It comes complete with technical drawings and techy details in an appendix and is illustrated throughout by contemporary phophphotographs.
January 17, 2016
The author assumes a level of knowledge in his readership that those casually interested in the spitfire will not have. As such, the details are lost in a blur of facts and figures. Those passages where he recounts examples of battles and personnel are very interesting and well written but as a newbie I could not follow the technical specifications of every generation of plane. It isn't consistently chronological either so I lost track of which Mk was competing with which new design.
On an unrelated note, this book has the most politically biased dedication I have ever read and throughout there are instances of heavy bias as well as almost religious eulogising.
On an unrelated note, this book has the most politically biased dedication I have ever read and throughout there are instances of heavy bias as well as almost religious eulogising.
July 21, 2012
An easy to read pocket history of my favourite plane. There is also a large format illustrated version available. If you only want one book on the Spitfire, this is one of the best, but be warned, Spitfires are highly addictive!
March 1, 2024
One for WW2 and Spitfire enthusiasts. Easy and factual read
October 6, 2021
A good introduction to this iconic plane and those involved in its development, its service and contemporaries. A fast moving read - definitely journalistic rather than history - but, as James Holland says on the front cover: 'Hugely entertaining'.
Read
July 27, 2011Well, a justified and great effort to cover all that can be said about that superb aeroplane, the Spitfire. Importantly loved by the pilots not just the enthusiasts, it spawned other notables via the constant improvements to the Merlin engine. The most praised the Packard/Merlin Mustang. The tale is by mark to mark through blocks of modifications to large runs of production models. It all started with the Schneider trophy triumph which we won outright (Plane can be seen in the Southampton Museum). Mitchell, the designer, died sadly in 1937. Joseph Smith then took over until 1947. The run ended with the XIX and the Griffon engine with RAF in 1957. We owe a tremendous debt to all of them and the flyers. We should all read the book.
June 23, 2013
More a hagiography, but an enjoyable enough read
February 5, 2016
:-))))))
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews