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Life's Too Short to Cry

The Compelling Story of a Battle of Britain Ace

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Life's Too Short to Cry

By: Tim Vigors
Narrated by: Roger Davis
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About this listen

A newly discovered “exhilarating and moving memoir” of an RAF fighter pilot in World War II (Daily Mail).

It is not often that a long-hidden gem of a manuscript is published, bringing a moment in WWII history to vivid life for today’s audiences. Geoffrey Wellum’s First Light was one example. The memoir of Timothy Vigors is another.

Born in Hatfield but raised in Ireland and educated at Eton and Cranwell, Vigors found himself in France in 1940 flying Fairey Battle bombers. After the Fall he joined the fighters of 222 Squadron, with whom he saw frantic and distinguished service over Dunkirk and persevered through the dangerous days of the Battle of Britain, when he became an ace.

Vigors transferred to the Far East in January 1941 as a flight commander with 243, then to 453 Squadron RAAF, and on December 10 of that year he led a flight of Buffaloes to cover the sinking Prince of Wales and Repulse. Dramatically shot down, burnt, and attacked on his parachute, he was evacuated to Java, and from there, to India. As he describes these experiences in his handwritten account, the author provides a fascinating and valuable record, a newly discovered personal narrative of air combat destined to be seen as a classic.

©2008 Tim and Diana Vigors (P)2018 Grub Street Ltd Air Forces Armed Forces Europe Great Britain Military Military & War World War II War England Memoir
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Honesty, bravery of so many and resilience. Very thought provoking. Shows how important chance is.

The bravery and horror

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I bought this because the Audible description states that Vigors flew Fairey Battles in France (I have only read one such biography; by William Simpson, which to my knowledge is the only such full biography in existence). So I was amazed and thrilled to learn from Audible that there existed another biography of a Battle pilot in France, and immediately dug in. But Vigors never did fly Fairey Battles. He trained on bombers (not Battles) by choice, but converted to Spitfires before combat flying. There is no Fairey Battle at all in this book. The Audible description is clearly a mistake, and a very disappointing one. Nevertheless, after realising the mistake, I continued and found this to be an excellent read, and comparable to many of the best Spitfire pilot biographies I've read before.
However I would request that Audible at least do some quality control. They might think that one plane is like any other plane, but a Fairly Battle pilot (or crewman) biography is gold dust (there are so few such personal accounts on record) whereas Spitfire Pilot biographies are common (and once you've read six or seven, you don't learn much more from reading another). I wish there was a category to rate Audible on this matter, since I would give it 1.

The Audible summary is wrong

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Very compeling and entertaining account of how lucky survivors of WWII really were. Very down to earth portrayal of the life of a fighter pilot. Highly recommend!

Very compeling and entertaining account of how lucky survivors of WWII really were.

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Tim lived a fascinating life of danger and heartbreak. his honest account of life in the second world war including his friendship of Douglas Barder and his account of why the Prince of Wales was sunk of Singapore are compelling

fascinating insight of a WW2 pilot

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Lovely inside in the thoughts of a young Ace!!
Wish there was another to see what happened to Tim in the rest of his life!

Great Story and Story teller Amazing!

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