The Aviation Historian Issue 22. Another
volume to delight HA members! It contains a typically thorough and
comprehensively illustrated Tony Buttler article on Kingston’s P.1129
which was finally merged with the Avro 739 for submission by Hawker
Siddeley to GOR339. However, the successful bid was BAC’s doomed TSR2.
Ron Williams was the project designer and a piece he wrote for the HA
Newsletter is included. Another fascinating article, by Phillip
Jarrett, describes a newly discovered 1919 design for a triplane glider
by Sydney Camm complete with Camm’s own drawings. In this issue you
will also learn how Hawker/Camm got the wing root fairings wrong on the
Hurricane while Supermarine/Shenstone got them right on the Spitfire.
Not to be missed.
Issue 20 has an article on the P.1040 with many excellent Hawker
photographs showing its construction, and continues the story of the
1957 Defence White Paper covering OR329 in which fighter contest
Hawker’s P.1103 was an outsider.
Hemingway in Wartime England by retired Director Harrier and HA Member Dick Wise is sub-titled ‘His life and times as a war correspondent’. As Hemingway was in England for only 64 days some readers might consider that there is more background than foreground in this book’s well produced and illustrated 240 pages. However, to this reader, that is the book’s great value. has, around Hemingway’s brief stay in England, created a vivid record of a short period of English history. Full of fastidiously researched peripheral but enlightening and fascinating detail Dick has written a memorable book. This is not just for Hemingway enthusiasts, who will surely be delighted by the main thread of the story and the facts about Hemingway’s stay that Dick has unearthed during ten years of research, but also for anyone wishing to know what it was like living in England in world War II.
The book has a first class index, detailed chapter end-notes, a
comprehensive bibliography and specifications of the aircraft Hemingway
flew in or was associated with. The surviving buildings and places
where Hemingway stayed, worked or visited are listed, described and
located allowing the reader to visit them.
And, by the way, Dunsfold features prominently as
Hemingway flew from there in a RAF Mitchell on a mission attacking V1
launch sites.
The book, ISBN-13:978-1974459230, is published by
Janus Transatlantic and is available from Amazon at £8.90, a genuine
bargain; recommended.