Product Description

Set during World War II, this book is an account of the war as lived by the men of Hornet Squadron, from the war in France until the end of the Battle of Britain. By the author of "Goshawk Squadron" and "War Story".

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #305582 in Books
• Published on: 1993-10-11
• Original language: English
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 768 pages

About the Author
Derek Robinson writes for the Rugby Football Union and the International Rugby Football Board. He is the author of 'Rugby: A Referee's Guide' and eight novels.

Customer Reviews

A Masterpiece!
I first read Derek Robinson's "Piece of Cake" a few years ago, and have since picked it up many times. It is a book which I can safely say is one of my very favourite books and a great read. Following the coming of age of an RAF Fighter Squadron ("Hornet") from the outbreak of WWII up until the climatic drama at the height of the Battle of Britain, "Piece of Cake" is a masterpiece. Like all Robinson's books, the dialogue is unspeakably good, and there is a very black vein of humour which courses throughout. This combined with some simply tragic events has the reader at times caught between laughter and tears, a strange mix but one which probably suits the absurdity of war. The dogfight scenes are brilliantly rendered and perfectly capture the sudden brutality and adrenaline fuelled excitement of these aerial encounters. It sounds clichéd but Robinson really does put the reader in the midst of an RAF squadron in Fighter Command both on the ground in the mess halls and dispersals of RAF air bases, and in the air in the cockpit of a Hawker Hurricane. I cannot recommend this novel enough, five stars just does not do it justice, I'd give it ten if I could.

No rose-tinted flying goggles here....
'Piece of Cake' was the first Derek Robinson novel I ever read. I recently purchased a replacement, as the original had been re-read and loaned-out so many times!

He has a certain trademark style, in that he debunks many of the myths of the RAF and warfare in general; both the popularly cherished ones and the relatively unknown. D.R. has the ability to build characters with an economy of style, i.e. just a hint of description and your own imagination will fill in the gaps. My father (ex RAF) read the book too, but like the previous reviewer he is a tad 'old school' and defensive when it comes to the RAF's history, and also thought the book somehow disrespectful. Although we owe so much to the men and women of the RAF during WW2, we cannot let ourselves be blinkered to the fact that many of them died so needlessly because of blinkered thinking, oversights or misguided strategies.
Much of what was taken for granted about the RAF's performance in WW2 has been reassessed in recent years, and D.R. does not let things such as sentimentality, jingoism or misplaced patriotism to fog his writing about what happened during the Battles of France and Britain. As opposed to being portrayed as a group of peerless whiter-than-white paladins and faultless heroes, the pilots and men of Hornet Squadron represent a pretty good cross-section of young (and not so young!) men going to war. As a group, the pilots are generally the product of the British public school system, and contain a pretty good cross-section of personality types: gung-ho heroes, romantics, thinkers, fools, cowards and bullies, who are capable of surprising themselves and each other; as well as the reader, as they variously display bravery, naivety, wisdom, immaturity, stubbornness, initiative, tenderness and bloody-minded ruthlessness.

There are a few characters that are cleverly placed so as to give some wider strategic and tactical background of the times to the story, and so help us to question what we have heard and taken for granted. The American volunteer character CH3 is typical of the many 'playboy' pilot-mercenaries who fought in Spain, China, and over Europe. He has a series of clashes with the very much traditional CO of Hornet Squadron, who poo-poos all of CH3's hard-won practical experiences and attempts to fight the war straight from the obsolete RAF rulebook; getting many of his pilots killed in doing so.
It is true that, at the time, Fighter Command's tactics and much of its equipment were woefully out-of-date, and that the lessons of the Spanish Civil War and the war in China were completely ignored. During the Battle of France, RAF Hurricanes had no back-armour or self sealing fuel tanks; a WOODEN 2-bladed fixed-pitch propeller; and canvas-covered wings. They fought in unwieldy tight-knit formations (the pilots at the back of which didn't have much of a life expectancy) and their rifle-caliber guns were harmonised to converge at about 800 yards compared to the much more accurate 100-200 yards (or less) they were later. By the time of the Battle of Britain, many of these oversights had been fixed, and the pilots (if allowed and encouraged by good COs) had adapted their tactics and formations (i.e. emulated the successful Luftwaffe ones!)
'Skull' Skelton, the squadron's intelligence officer, is another interesting character. Although no flyer; his intellect and erudition enable him to think 'outside the box', and his candid outspokenness makes him less than popular with figures of authority; not to mention some of the pilots who's claims he has to assess. He turns up in two other D.R. novels too.
As the Battle of Britain progresses we see some foreign pilots from occupied Europe attached to the squadron, but despite their bravery and skill, the attitudes of some of their ex-public school comrades are often quite xenophobic and immature to say the least. The two romantic sub-plots set in France during the early part of the story, serve not only to help illustrate the thinking of the French civilians and their relationship with the BEF during the 'Phony War', but also to show just how naive and unworldly some of the young pilots were.
The widely differing and often conflicting personalities in Piece of Cake make it quite 'human' and realistic. The dialogue throughout is very sharp and witty. I found myself actually laughing out loud quite often, but within a page I'd be shocked, thrilled, spellbound, or sorrowful, as D.R. is a master of describing flying and aerial combat as well as the sometimes tedious routine of Service life on the ground. This happens in all of D.R.'s books; roller-coasters of emotion, situation, and pace. I cannot recommend them highly enough, and Piece of Cake is a great introduction.

Have another Piece!
I have to start by saying that this is one of my most re-read books. Derek Robinson's portrayal of the lives, loves, laughs and lows of Hornet Squadron in The Phoney War of 1939 and then The Battle of Britain in 1940 is superb.

Mr. Robinson's skill lies not perhaps in the originality of ideas - several of the incidents in Piece of Cake really did happen to other pilots in the Battle, as the author freely admits - but in embelishing them and putting them together into a whole greater than the sum of its parts. The characters are believable and certainly not always likeable; the air combat narrative is gripping; the tempo is exactly judged and the overall 'feel' of the novel highly convincing. Piece of Cake is the best of Derek Robinson's 'war works', in my opinion.