The Battle of Britain Five Months That Changed History, May—October 1940 by James Holland (z-lib.org).epub

steered me in the right direction on lots of different matters. He has also
been an incredibly helpful sounding board, and someone with whom I can
chat about these matters both at great length and with complete enjoyment.
Thank you, Peter. I must also thank two other great buddies, Guy Walters
and Rowland White, with whom it is always similarly good to talk through
ideas and from whom encouragement is always given at just the right
moment. Thanks are also owed to another dear friend and travelling
companion, David Walsh, who accompanied me through northern France
and the Low Countries, and to Germany. Thank you, too, to Professor
Jeremy Black, a tutor of mine at Durham and now Professor of History at
Exeter and a good friend. His advice and counsel have been an enormous
help. My thanks, too, go to Clive and Linda Denney. Clive is a brilliant
latter-day pilot and has been very helpful with both technical matters and in
giving me an aerial tour of southern England and of a number of the Battle
of Britain airfields, not least Biggin, North Weald, Duxford, Manston and
the Pas de Calais. I also want to thank my brother, Tom, who has always
been an enormous inspiration. My respect for him as a writer, academic and
historian knows no bounds, and it is as a devoted younger brother that I am
able to dedicate this book to him. Thanks, Bro.
No-one, however, has given me more help than Professor Rick Hillum.
Not only does Rick have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the period, but he
is also a technical wizard. His understanding of all scientific matters from
flight to radar is incredible and he has patiently explained what were, to me,
very complicated issues and translated things into clear, layman’s terms.
Rick has been with me all the way through the writing of this book, and it
truly could not have been written without him. Rick, I shall be eternally
grateful – thank you.
I also want to thank Lalla Hitchings, who has, as ever, been brilliant,
transcribing numerous interviews, and Ute Harding, who both translated
and transcribed my conversations with German veterans. I am also very
grateful to the following for their help along the way: Giles Bourne, Chris
Goss for the loan of much hard-garnered archive material, and Peter
Osborne and Independent Books for so generously letting me cite from his
book with Ulrich Steinhilper and for the use of photographs.
Thank you, too, to Patrick Walsh and to Claire, Alan, Jake, Alex and
Alexandra, and all at Conville & Walsh. I am also really grateful to all those
who have helped at Bantam Press. To Madeline Toy, Steve Mulcahey,