Dilip Sarkar - The Final Few: The Last Surviving Pilots of the Battle of Britain Tell Their Stories

To members of the Battle of Britain Fighter Association, past and present.

First published 2015

Amberley Publishing
The Hill, Stroud
Gloucestershire, GL5 4EP

www.amberley-books.com

Copyright Dilip Sarkar, 2015

The right of Dilip Sarkar to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

ISBN 9781445642369 (PRINT)
ISBN 9781445642550 (eBOOK)

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Typesetting and Origination by Amberley Publishing
Printed in the UK.

The aviation-minded reader will notice that I have referred to German Messerschmitt fighters by the abbreviation Me (not Bf, which is also correct), or simply by their numeric designation, such as 109 or 110. This not only reads better but is authentic; during the Battle of Britain, Keith Lawrence, a New Zealander, flew Spitfires and once said to me, To us they were just 109s or 110s, simple.

In another attempt to preserve accuracy, wherever possible I have also used the original German regarding terms associated with the Luftwaffe, such as:

Each geschwader generally comprised three gruppen, each of three staffeln. Each gruppe is designated by Roman numerals, i.e. III/JG 26 refers to the third gruppe of Fighter Group (abbreviated JG) 26. Staffeln are identified by numbers, so 7/JG 26 is the seventh staffel and belongs to III/JG 26.

Rank comparisons may also be useful:

RAF Abbreviations