Spitfire Pilot cover art

Spitfire Pilot

 Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Spitfire Pilot

By: Flight-Lieutentant David M. Crook DFC, Richard Overy
Narrated by: Steven Crossley
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £7.99

Buy Now for £7.99

Only £0.99 a month for the first 3 months. Pay £0.99 for the first 3 months, and £8.99/month thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Start my membership

About this listen

At the outbreak of the Second World War D. M. Crook, of No. 609 Squadron AAF, was at Yeadon, still undergoing his training; by the winter of 1939-40, he had his wings.

Successfully applying to return to his Squadron, then on defense duties in northern England, Crook began to familiarize himself with their new fighter: the Spitfire.

Soon they were posted to RAF Northolt, and it was at this time that Crook, much to his chagrin, was left grounded, undergoing knee surgery as they flew over Dunkirk.

Following the Allied evacuation from France, Crook returned to the air and found himself facing the relentless sorties as the skies above Britain transformed into a battlefield. In one particularly frank passage, Crook recounts how he mistakenly shot down a Blenheim, going on to illustrate how easy it was for pilots to misidentify aircraft.

Spitfire Pilot is a remarkable account of one officer's life in 609 Squadron during one of the most famous battles of the Second World War.

©1942 David M. Crook; Introduction copyright 2006 by Richard Overy; On 609 Squadron copyright 2006 by Sandy Hunter; Preface copyright 2006 by Rosemary Loyd (P)2018 Tantor Air Forces Armed Forces Military War Aviation

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Ace Pilots of World War II Series, Fighter Aces of the R.A.F 1939-1945 cover art
I Flew for the Führer cover art
Enemy Coast Ahead cover art
Mosquito Men cover art
Aircrew cover art
Mustang Ace: Memoirs of a P-51 Fighter Pilot cover art
Cinderella Boys cover art
Dead Reckoning cover art
Flying for France cover art
Guts 'N Gunships cover art
Wings over Summer cover art
Flames in the Sky cover art
Churchill’s Few cover art
Aces Falling cover art
The Fighting Corsairs cover art
The Silver Spitfire cover art
All stars
Most relevant
loved this, Felt the narrator perfectly captured the atmosphere.
my appreciation for our hero's of that time has somehow manged to be increased on hearing Mr Crook's story. Forever grateful to them all!!

Great story.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Excellently told stor, with a flair for understatements. The human toll among pilots in the early years of ww2 were horrific. The dice were tossed every time one left the ground, whether combat or training flights. Individual skills played a part in survival, but surpricingly little. Countless great pilots were lost regardless. One tends to forget that memoars are usually told by the survivors. This story is an exception to the rule.

one of the bettet pilot memoars of ww2.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
written as is was in 1940-42 in a front line squadron. like being a part of it.
brilliant.

superb account of squadron life

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Why? Just a feeling of respect for all these young lives snuffed out, who never had any of the chances that I've enjoyed - and to my shame sometimes squandered in the occasional stupidities of my own youth. I'm of a generation not called upon to serve in any military sense, so have for long been aware of a feeling of helpless gratitude to my father's generation. He and his twin volunteered for the RAF but neither were found fit for flight duties so had to be content with being service crew on a variety of aircraft. So very many shortened lives and young widows the result of the two major madnesses of the 20th century. Plus all the others, of course.
Despite these bitter lessons, people find reasons to take their countries into wars that are without exception - avoidable.
Witness Putin's nonsensical current outrage in Ukraine... seems that our species needs periodic outbreaks of the most obscene activity of all - choosing to make war - when talking as an option never kills anyone. If that can serve as an explanation for giving this a 5 star rating, it's my reason, and realised while still amidships in this audio that no other rating was possible for me.

Impossible - for me - to award less than 5*

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I always enjoy stories about the RAF during World War II and found this book to be no exception. The descriptions of the aerial battles are riveting, and you have a very good impression of the dangerous through which these brave man went.

The story of a very brave pilot.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews