United Kingdom; Poland, Republic. Squadron 303 - The Story of the Polish Fighting Squadron with the R.A.F.

Item #GB7645

$45

Hardcover, gray cloth cover, the pilot badge insignia on the front cover and the text on the spine in silver-coloured ink, entitled "Squadron 303 - The Story of the Polish Fighting Squadron with the R.A.F." by Arkady Fiedler, copyrighted in 1943 by Roy Publishers A.N. of New York, First Printing in February 1943, Second Printing in June 1943, printed and bound in the U.S.A. by Kingsport Press, Inc. of Kingsport, Tennessee. A quote by General Wladyslaw Sikorski, Commander in Chief of the Polish Armed Forces, speaking to Poles in Detroit, Michigan in April 1943 appears on page 5: "Since the day when Polish soldiers on foreign soil took up the arms which - for a time only - had been struck from the hands of the Nation, they have fought so well that they have won renown and glory throughout the world. I can assure you that they will continue so to fight in the future, until final victory." It begins with a Table of Contents, followed by a List of Illustrations. The book contains sixteen chapters: 1 - "I Am Delighted"; 2 - The Battle of Britain, 1940; 3 - Comradeship; 4 - The Fighter Pilot; 5 - All Bullets Spent; 6 - Ups and Downs; 7 - Big Game: Dorniers; 8 - Suffering; 9 - Jan Donald Smiles Three Times; 10 - The Cloud; 11 - The Best Score; 12 - The Enemy's Danse Macabre; 13 - A Gallant Czech, Sergeant Frantisek; 14 - The Grey Roots of Brilliant Flowers; 15 - Sans Peur et Sans Reproche (Without Fear and Without Reproach); 16 - The Myth of the Messerschmitt 110. The book contains 182 pages of text, printed in black ink, on an off-white paper stock, with a black and white photograph entitled "General Sikorski honors" and illustrating the general awarding a cross with document to a flyer in a hospital bed, along with sixteen pages of black and white photographs inserted at various intervals throughout the book, with a personalized inscription in blue ink, "Norma and Dick / Kingston '44" on the front cover endpaper, measuring 145 mm (w) x 218 mm (h) x 26.5 mm (d). It exhibits light soiling on the front cover, the inside front cover and facing endpaper, along with some scattered pages, in addition to discolouration and foxing on the edges of the pages, however, most of the pages and photographs in the book remain pristine. Near fine.

 

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