FLY For Your LIFE

Inscribed & signed on the title page by

Wing Commander Bob Stanford Tuck 

To David Porter
“A wonderful gathering – well done”!!
Bob Stanford Tuck
27th June 63, Grosshoffen

Frederick Muller Limited.  First Edition, 2nd impression 1956. 367 pages.  Frontispiece portrait and 30 photos.

Fine condition hardback book in blue boards and with gilt titles on the spine.  Internally it is bright and clean without the usual age tanning to the end papers. The Fine condition, unclipped dustjacket has some light edgewear but looks smart in a protective cover. An excellent copy in all respects.  Research suggests that this book was given to Flt Lt David Porter, a Mosquito pilot on 23 Squadron, who was a fellow PoW in Stalag Luft III in 1944. Perhaps he organised a re-union in 1963?

With 29 victories, eight probables and six damaged, Bob Stanford Tuck was one of the greatest fighter aces of WWII though his combat career only lasted 18 months from Dunkirk to January 1942 when he was shot down by ground fire in northern France.  Imprisoned in Stalag Luft III, he escaped eastwards, because he was a Russian speaker, and joined the advancing Soviet troops.

From the jacket:  “The story of ‘the Immortal Tuck’, one of the RAF’s top fighter pilots with 29 official victories and more than his share of hairsbreadth escapes.  So phenomenal was his luck that he became a legend”. 

This is one of the classic Battle of Britain books and signed copies are particularly hard to find in any condition.