Derek Robinson

Robinson never flew a combat aircraft and researched everything, and the results are among the least romantic accounts of air war anybody has published. Goshawk Squadron reached the Booker shortlist in 1971 with a Royal Flying Corps commander who teaches his pilots to shoot enemies in the back because chivalry gets young men killed. Damned Good Show is Bomber Command, and A Splendid Little War covers the British intervention in Russia in 1919. Veterans complained about the tone and he answered them with the casualty figures. He is from Bristol and did his national service in the air force.