Product Description

When The Big Show was first published, paper rationing meant that the text had to be heavily cut. Now, for the first time, this international bestseller has been returned to its complete, and breathtaking, original state. Pierre Clostermann was a Free French fighter ace who flew with the RAF during the Second World War. Over the course of five years he engaged in hundreds of dog-fights, shot down scores of Luftwaffe planes, escorted American bombers on some of the most dangerous raids of the war, and watched many of his friends falling to their deaths in the skies over the Channel. The Big Show, his incredible account of the air war over Britain and France, has become one of the most famous memoirs of the Second World War. Now in its original state, it contains everything one could wish for in a war memoir: wonderfully observed descriptions of wartime Britain, frighteningly evocative stories of in-the-cockpit action, an amazing cast of characters, and all the drama and bravery of a man fighting a desperate war thousands of feet above the ground. An undeniable classic.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #65070 in Books
• Published on: 2006-03-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

About the Author
Pierre Closterman earned his pilot's licence in 1937 at the age of 16. When war broke out in 1939 he was studying engineering in the USA. He volunteered for the Free French forces and joined No. 341 'Alsace' Squadron of the RAF. He ended the war commanding a flight of Tempests and with nearly 30 'kills'. He won the DSO, DFC and Bar. After the war, Closterman went into politics and worked for Dassault. He returned to action briefly during the Algerian war.

Customer Reviews

Probably the best pilots account of WW2
Pierre Glosterman was a French pilot who choose to fight for the RAF in WW2 rather than the Free French. Despite reaching the rank of Wing Commander & recieving a host of medals by Britain he was disgracefully treated by the post-war French Government (because he fought for the brits). When he tried to join the French airforce he was only offered the rank of sous-lieutenant (pilot officer) a disgusting snub for one of the most experienced combat pilots to survive the war.
His book was written based on diaries he wrote at the time rather thanmemories & as a result is extremely accurate. He charts the rise of the RAF as the war progressed starting with Mark V Spitfires v Focke Wolfe'sover Calais & ending up flying Mark V Tempests against the new German Jet sover Germany itself.
I first read this when I was 12 & am delighted that its back in print. I still vividly remember reading about his high altitude interception of an Me109 over Scapa Flow (Orkney) in a Mark 8 high altitude Spitfire. Hepursued & downed the german in a near vertical dive from over 40,000 feet. In the course of that his Spitfire nearly exceeded the sound barrier which caused almost fatal damage to the airframe. His account of the subsequent forced landing in a Spitfire with a jammed canopy is real edge-of-the-seat stuff as is his account of crash landing a Tempest just days after watching a friend burn to death doing the same.
Buy this book! There's very few like it.

I've edited this to add in a new paragraph: the original version of the book was edited because of 'post war paper shortages'. Reading this version you realise that was a shocking lie. This is the unedited version which includes some pretty catty comments about De Gaulle and Montgomery, a few amazing allied cockups and one incident when Glostermann who really should have been rested and is strung out on the amphetamines needed to keep him flying has to be stopped from shooting down a B17 that ditches its bombs over a french town. This new version of the book tell you EXACTLY how WW2 was fought and won and is much better than the original sanitised version.

My return to childhood
If there was only one WW2 book you should read, here it goes.
This book is the first from many WW2 memoirs I've read and it's undoubtedly the best one. When reading this, YOU ARE THERE, smelling the gunpowder, hearing bullets and explosions and wishing only to pass through the hell alive. You will read this book during one long evening and then you'll return to it, once and again. I remember that I cried when reading the last pages, I cried of relief and sadness, I cried along with the young man, who had come through the most painful chapter of his life. Per Ardua Ad Astra - Through Struggle To The Stars, they say. And you'll find that definitely true.

Air Warfare as you have never read it before.
The Big Show first came into my possession in 1951. It quickly became my favourite book, much read and re-read and now a battered well thumbed prize possession.
Imagine my joy to find it newly re-issued and with previously unpublished material. There is so much that is new that it is like starting all over again, and, there are even new photographs!
This book of Clostermann's RAF service is the most exciting account of air warfare ever published. The descriptions of combat are so realistic that you are there with him in his Spitfire or Tempest, dodging the flak and Me109's.
Experience the thrill of air combat and share his grief at the loss of close friends.
This is truly one of the greatest accounts of war in the air ever published.