Spitfire Pilot

Sidney Allinson is a Victoria-based communications consultant, Canadian
news correspondent for Britain’s The Army Quarterly and Defence, and
author of The Bantams: The Untold Story of World War I.

This is a memoir of what it was like be a young Canadian fighter pilot
flying the legendary Supermarine Spitfire. Perry Bauchman writes in
unassuming style of his adventures, which began in Yarmouth, Nova
Scotia, in 1942. We learn how the young farm boy was transformed into a
Pilot Officer in the Royal Canadian Air Force, flying on combat over
England, France, and North Africa.

Bauchman is amusingly frank about the various times he fell in love
before finding his one true love, an English girl who served in the
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. He devotes much of the book to describing
their courtship, which was marked by frequent wartime separations.

The author has remarkable recall of the details of flying conditions
and air combat. As well as being involved in numerous airborne battles,
he had the particularly dangerous job of shooting down “doodlebug”
flying bombs. His squadron also went on daily low-level sweeps to attack
enemy forces on the ground; Bauchman writes movingly of the many friends
who perished while doing so. Spitfire Pilot ends on a joyous note, with
Bauchman marrying his sweetheart and bringing her to Canada to lead what
proved to be a long and happy life together.