Big Show: The Greatest Pilot's Story of World War II Book

Pierre Clostermann's story of flying over 300 combat missions while serving as a Free French Sergeant-Pilot with the RAF.

The episode when Clostermann helped remove a fellow pilot from the cockpit of a Hawker Tempest fighter that had crashed and cartwheeled in a flaming wreck while attempting a "wheels-up" belly-landing, and then holding what was left of his burned & mangled friend as he died in his arms was gut-wrenching. And then the next day Clostermann himself, bravely risked a belly-landing of his own to preserve another of the squadron's precious Tempests to fly and fight another day.

The single most moving page of personal-history war memoirs that I've ever read is the final page of Clostermann's book, where, after participating in the final, massive fly-over of London to celebrate V-E Day, he gently set down his Hawker Tempest 'Le Grand Charles' (named after Charles De Gaule) "like a cut flower, on the grass..."; and then after walking out to check on him, his crew-chief turned and walked away without a word when he saw Clostermann's shoulders shaking as he sat in the cockpit of Le Grand Charles, weeping that their last flight together was over - along with - The Big Show.

On a personal note, my first copy of "The Big Show" I found abandoned in the desk of my 8th Grade Math class, and years later my best friend in college saw it on my bookshelf and said, "Hey, I had a copy of that book and I lost it in Mr. Gadd's Math class, way back in Middle School." And I said, "No kidding! Guess where I found it?"

That's why I had to get a second copy of "The Big Show" so I could still have one to re-read once in a while.