By Christopher Miskimon
Spitfires is the story of 26 American women who shared a love for the air and a desire to do what their own country wouldn’t let them—contribute to the war effort as pilots. The first of them sailed to England in March 1942 to join Britain’s civilian Air Transport Authority. The ATA ferried 309,000 RAF and RN aircraft—147 different types—between factories, maintenance depots and airfields in Britain and later to continental Europe and the Mediterranean.
Delivering new planes to be outfitted for combat and shot-up planes in for repairs—all in England’s infamous weather and with the threat of German attacks—one out of every seven ferry pilots was killed.
The ATA would employ some 1,300 pilots from 28 nations—including men who were disabled or unfit for active duty and 168 women. Rare for the time, men and women of equal rank received equal pay.
This entertaining and well-researched work, includes diary entries and material from interviews with surviving pilots. It Also includes photos of many of the women and the planes they flew.
Spitfires: The American Women Who Flew in the Face of Danger during World War II (Becky Aikman, Bloomsbury Publishing, New York, NY, 2025, 368pp., notes, photographs, $31.99, HC)
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