All the Fine Young Eagles: In the Cockpit with Canada’s Second World War Fighter Pilots

This rich collection of wartime diaries and postwar reminiscences of Canadian WWII fighter pilots provides important historical context for the pilots’ role in the war from the spring of 1943 to the end of hostilities. Bashow (Starfighter), a former fighter pilot (he’s a retired lieutenant colonel) and associate professor of history at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ont., explains in the preface that since the first edition of the book was published in 1996, more veterans have shared their memories with him, inspiring him to add their accounts to this second updated and expanded edition. The pilots give detailed descriptions of the planes they flew and share combat stories of downing enemy pilots, crash landing, and evading capture. Other anecdotes document the lives of fighter pilots, the hardship of flying multiple sorties some days, and the boredom of inaction on others. Bashow’s frequent use of acronyms can be distracting, particularly for readers unfamiliar with military terminology, and a consolidated list of them would have been helpful. This evocative account of the aerial war is an important contribution to historical records as veterans age and memories fade. (Apr.)