Mini Book Review – The Few, Alex Kershaw

Covering the handful of US pilots that fought with the RAF in 1940, this promised to be an interesting book written in an engaging narrative style. Despite the title being a bit odd, “The Few” having a distinct meaning, I enjoyed the first few pages but as I got into the book, repeated factual errors detracted badly.

A few examples: RAF Kenley described as being in 12 Group; 11 Group described as “Sector 11”; Wissant between Calais and Boulogne being “On the Normandy coast”; the “American built” Miles Master (meaning the engine of the Mk3, presumbably) and possibly the most glaring (so far – havn’t finished the book!) a conflation of Sydney Camm and RJ Mitchell when describing the Hurricane as “..designed by Camm who had fought tooth and nail to get them in production but tragically died before he could see how effective they were in combat”. Of course Camm actually lived until 1966 and not only saw the effectiveness of the Hurricane, but was ultimately involved in the design of the Harrier!

A shame as it makes you wonder what else is wrong.