Beaufighter Ace : The Nightfighter Career of Marshall of the Royal Air Force,Sir Thomas Book

Tom Pike joined the Royal Air Force on 17 January 1924 as a Flight Cadet at Cranwell. During a long and varied career in peace and war he held a wide variety of RAF appointments around the world and when he eventually retired he had held the ultimate post in the RAF, that of Chief of Air Staff and also that of Deputy Supreme Commander Allied Powers Europe.

This book, written by his son, is an account of his leadership of No 219 Night Fighter Squadron based at Tangmere in 1941. Then a Wing Commander and also CO of the squadron, Tom nevertheless found enough time to fly operationally and during his 10 months with 219 he and his crew shot down five night-raiding Luftwaffe aircraft and damaged several more. This book, based on his father's log books, notes and conversations, has allowed Richard Pike to describe in vivid detail, the game of cat and mouse that was played in the night-time skies over southern England and the English Channel in those early desperate wartime years.