This image is the cover for the book Daily Telegraph Airmen's Obituaries, The Daily Telegraph

Daily Telegraph Airmen's Obituaries, The Daily Telegraph

The acclaimed chronicler of RAF history has compiled ninety-one obituaries of outstanding aviators covering the period from 2007 to the end of 2017.

With a focus on personnel from a range of air forces, including the RAF, USAF, RCAF, RNZAF and SAAF, there are a number of fascinating and distinguishable lives to read about. Those featured include MRAF Sir Michael Beetham, the longest-serving Chief of Air Staff in the RAF (apart from its founder Lord Trenchard); Brigadier General Paul Tibbets who commanded the USAAF bomber Enola Gay, which dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945; and Wing Commander “Dal” Russel, a highly decorated wartime Canadian fighter pilot, whose logbook recorded kills in the Battle of Britain and the Normandy invasion. There is also Lettice Curtis, the first woman qualified to fly a four-engine bomber and who by the end of the Second World War had flown over 400 heavy bombers, 150 Mosquitos and hundreds of Hurricanes and Spitfires as part of her role in the Air Transport Auxiliary. The book includes a foreword written by former Chief of Air Staff, Sir Richard Johns.

Graham Pitchfork, Sir Richard Johns

Air Commodore Graham Pitchfork spent 36 years in the RAF, as a navigator. He was director of Air Warfare and, before retiring in 1995, was a director of Military Intelligence at the MoD. Now living in Gloucestershire, Graham is the author of several aviation books, including 'Buccaneer Boys' (Grub Street). In 2012, Graham received both the Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators Award for Aviation Journalism and the Air Power Association Award of the CP Robertson Memorial Trophy for his services to aviation writing. He has written over 600 air force obituaries for the Daily Telegraph in the last 16 years.

Grub Street Publishing