The "Daily Telegraph" Book of Airmen's Obituaries - Tapa dura

Over the past 15 years Edward Bishop has written the obituaries of countless men and women who have figured in the story of civil and military aviation - numbers of whom he has known personally and 100 of the most interesting of which appear here. Ranging from R.E. Bishop, designer of the de Havilland Mosquito, to Leonard Cheshire VC who flew the "wooden wonder", to Tom Sopwith, the plane-making pioneer, to Sir Frank Whittle, the jet engine pioneer, Bishop's obituaries reflect the glories and setbacks of aviation in peace and war. Amid a host of pilots are Jeffrey Quill, Bob Stanford Tuck, Ginger Lacey, Adolf Galland, Johnnie Johnson, Babe Learoyd (a bomber VC), Freddie West (a 1914-18 VC) and Peter Townsend. Here, too, are Monique Agazarian, an Air Transport Auxiliary pilot who on VE Day flew the length of Piccadilly at low level in a Spitfire, and Constance Babington-Smith whose brilliant interpretation of photo-recce results was a byword. Also featured are lesser-known heroes such as Jimmy Wright, the combat aerial cameraman blinded on active service who was to become a famed "guinea pig" and film producer.