Title: Rah, rah!
Product review: A fluffy bit of propaganda written in the form of a journal, but occasionally apostrophizing the reader none-the-less. More like novel, a bad one where characters are thin, events are hackneyed, and idiom is cliched. Intent is to portray to Americans the courage & character of Brits & their fighter pilots during the Battle of Britain, through a compendium of tales fictionalized for retelling. Interesting for its 1941 idiom and occasional oblique mention of new weaponry, such as radar and proximity fuses. Amusing, too, for moral values that produced shame then, but seem laughable today. But taken whole, a wide-eyed account of life on an air base from the point of view of a socially, politically and militarily correct scion of Britannia. Not a novel of war like "The Cruel Sea" or journalism like Casey's "And I was There," but readable. Nothing more than an an adult version of "Dave Dawson in the R.A.F," except that Ayling feels obliged to kill off his hero in the last paragraph.
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