Product Description

'An extraordinary, deeply moving and astonishingly evocative story. Reading it, you feel you are in the Spitfire with him, at 20,000 feet, chased by a German Heinkel, with your ammunition gone' INDEPENDENT Two months before the outbreak of WWII, seventeen year old Geoffrey Wellum left school to become a fighter pilot with the RAF. He made it through basic training to become the youngest Spitfire pilot in the prestigious 92 Squadron. Thrust into combat almost immediately, Wellum found himselfflying several sorties a day, caught up in terrifying dogfights with German Me 109s. Published more than fifty years afterwards, FIRST LIGHT is Geoffrey Wellum's gripping memoir of his experiences as a fighter pilot during WWII.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #21468 in Books
• Published on: 2003-05-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Surviving Battle of Britain fighter aces were thin on the ground even in 1941, so any new book more than 60 years later from a previously unknown pilot is bound to get noticed. And First Light is not just any book. It might not turn out to be a lasting classic, like Richard Hillary's The Last Enemy or Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, but it is a cut well above the bog standard wartime reminiscences of many retired military bods. For a start Wellum can write, but more than this he has an instinctive feel for a good story. He begins First Light as a fresh-faced, rather obnoxious public schoolboy keen to blag his way into the RAF in March 1939; just three years, two full tours on Spitfires, the Battle of Britain, nearly 100 escorts and fighter sweeps over occupied France and a Malta convoy later, Wellum was physically and mentally burnt out before the age of 22. An old man in a boy's body. His descriptions of the excitement, freedom and, at times, sheer terror of operating in a three-dimensional airspace are vividly powerful, but perhaps his greatest gift is to get across the way the fatigue and the emotional shutting off creeps up unnoticed.

At the start, the death of a friend leaves Wellum devastated and wondering when his turn will come; within the space of a few hundred pages, the failure of a pilot to return is dropped in almost as an afterthought. This is not the response of a man who cares too little, but of one who cares too much. Without being aware of it, he has experienced and felt too much and his mind and body have involuntarily separated. This comes into even sharper relief at the end when Wellum is stood down from active service; he is the only one not to see--quite literally, as his vision has become impaired--that his ailments are rooted in his psyche rather than his body. The only one false note is his desire to see his role as part of a bigger picture; written many years after the events he describes, Wellum sometimes interjects thoughts and feelings about the war that simply do not ring true. That aside, one is left wondering what became of Wellum the man between the war ending and the book's publication. What sense did the prematurely aged fighter pilot make of the post-war age and did he learn to love again? But that, maybe, is the subject for another book. --John Crace

Review
'An extraordinary, deeply moving and astonishingly evocative story. Reading it, you feel you are in the Spitfire with him, at 20,000 feet, chased by a German Heinkel, with your ammunition gone' Independent

From the Inside Flap
"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."
–Winston Churchill, 1940

Geoffrey Wellum was one of Churchill’s "few," the gallant pilots of the RAF who streaked through the skies to repel the massive, brutal Nazi bombing assaults that killed thousands and leveled entire cities throughout the endless months of the Battle of Britain. To a man, they were courageous, determined, and oh, so young. Geoffrey, known as Boy to his comrades, was a good deal younger than most.

In First Light, Geoffrey Wellum tells the inspiring, often terrifying true story of his coming of age amid the roaring, tumbling dogfights of the fiercest air war the world had ever seen. It is the story of an idealistic schoolboy who couldn’t believe his luck when the RAF agreed to take him on as a "pupil pilot" at the minimum age of seventeen and a half in 1939. In his fervor to fly, he gave little thought to the coming war.

Writing with wit, compassion, and a great deal of technical expertise, Wellum relives his grueling months of flight training, during which two of his classmates crashed and died. He describes a hilarious scene during his first day in the prestigious 92nd Squadron when his commander discovered that Wellum had not only never flown a Spitfire, he’d never even seen one.

Boy soon learned the golden rule of the dogfight: "Never fly straight and level for more than twenty seconds. If you do, you’ll die." Wellum’s vivid accounts of ferocious aerial combat contrast the mortal terror of an innocent teenager with the grim determination of a highly trained warrior intent on doing his job–blasting the enemy one moment, desperately trying to shake off a pursuer the next. Few writers have succeeded more completely in evoking the chaos and horror of war.

A battle–hardened ace by the winter of 1941, though still not out of his teens, Boy flew scores of missions as fighter escort on bombing missions over France. Yet the constant life–or–death stress of murderous combat and anguish over the loss of his closest friends sapped endurance. Tortured by fierce headaches, even in the midst of battle, he could not bear the thought of "not pulling your weight," of letting other pilots risk their lives in his place. Wellum’s frank account of his long, losing bout with battle fatigue is both moving and enlightening.

Filled with affectionate portraits of Boy’s fellow fliers–many of whom did not survive the war–First Light tells an unforgettable true story of patriotism and fear, pride and humility, self–sacrifice and triumph. Already a bestseller in England, this powerful and compelling memoir is destined to become a classic, not only of military history, but also of literature.

Customer Reviews

First Light = First Rate!
I am a modern pilot (though only born 10 years after WW2) but like most pilots would give almost anything (within reason) to fly a Spitfire! Geoffrey has made me feel as though I have finally achieved that dream by 'taking me for a cockpit ride in his Spitfire!'

I read a review or two by other readers of 'First Light' and was surprised at the mention of 'class' or 'priviledge' in some reviews. Maybe as a fellow former 'public schoolboy' the language and style seemed quite normal, but from his writings, I think it highly unlikely that Geoffrey would have consciously written with the slightest thought of having been privileged, other than the most obvious one of being allowed to experience the ultimate flying experience.

I like most readers, I suspect, was humbled by reading such a modest account of bravery and incredible airmanship.

Despite the passage of time between Geoffrey's flying training and my own, there are so many similies to draw upon which hold true to the present day. All pilots (of all experience) will be immediately taken back to their own flying training days when reading the early accounts. The description of 'seat of the pants' flying is extremely modestly described in various accounts of flying at night, in very marginal weather conditions and in particular, of chasing a target over the North Sea in weather that under normal conditions, no pilot would normally consider even thinking about removing the chocks!

I loved the book, couldn't put it down, empathised completely with the author - a man whose hand I would very much like to shake!

Claims a place in my heart for Best Autobiographical military history
I have read countless military history books by now and all the autobiographical ones follow a set pattern: young blood doesn't know he'll make the cut, eventually finds he's doing reasonably well, and reaches a certain proficiency, then becomes depressed with the hopelessness of war and loss. Wellum's book follows the same path but more than any other he puts the reader right there. It's hard for our generation to imagine being put in such a situation as a 17 year old school boy but Wellum makes you be that boy. What separates this from the others is the very human self-doubt that the author experiences along the way reminds us the fighter boys weren't just heroes, they were normal people with normal doubts and fears doing heroic things.

K Cowburn (above) feels the book has too much extraneous detail. Not so, the detail places the book firmly in reality and helps create pace. Take the eponymous chapter; it opens with banal descriptions of taking a cup of tea and builds and builds into a life or death crescendo. Better than a Mahler symphony.

This is one book I've turned to again and again. Buy it.

Boy Wonder
Having read countless personal accounts in all WW2 fighting arenas, I was resigned to the fact that I had read the best there was to offer and that further reading would only offer diminishing returns. And then out of nowhere comes the relatively unknown Geoffrey Wellum with a total classic.

First Light is crafted around notes that Wellum made during his basic training and two tours of duty flying Spitfires from 1939 to 1942. The book shines during Wellum's training and first tour of duty, coinciding with the Battle of Britain, but is slightly less rewarding when the battle weary pilot starts to neglect his diary.
The book has a very modern feel to it and I put this down to the fact that Wellum was a teenager when he compiled his notebook and the stiff upper lip is totally absent and a much more vulnerable figure is portrayed. Even his colleagues called him 'Boy'.

This book deserves to become a best seller, I just hope a few more people discover it.