Recovered, Dahl is sent to Greece, fighting a rearguard action as the Germans pour soldiers and planes into the country that their Italian allies failed to secure. Dahl clearly disagrees with the decision, which I found odd given his scathing comments on Vichy Frenchmen in Syria. As was apparent in Fortress Malta: An Island Under Siege 1940-43, the British high command was halfhearted in implementing Churchill's policy, as well as ensuring dissemination of the hard learned lessons of the Battle of Britain to fliers in other theaters of war. I'm giving this book 5 stars without having actually read it, but ya know what it's my review so I can do whatever I want (don't try and stop me)! And now you can listen to all of Roald Dahl's stories on audio, read by some very famous voices, including Kate Winslet, David Walliams and Steven Fry - plus there are added squelchy soundeffects from Pinewood Studios!

Going Solo by Roald Dahl: 9780142413838 | PenguinRandomHouse

On that day, somebody behind a desk in Athens or Cairo had decided that for once our entire force of Hurricanes, all twelve of us, should go up together. The inhabitants of Athens, so it seemed, were getting jumpy and it was assumed that the sight of us all flying overhead would boost their morale. Had I been an inhabitant of Athens at that time, with a German army of over 100,000 advancing swiftly on the city, not to mention a Luftwaffe of about 1,000 planes all within bombing distance, I would have been pretty jumpy myself, and the sight of twelve lonely Hurricanes flying overhead would have done little to boost my morale.Roald Dahl (1916-1990) was born in Wales of Norwegian parents. He spent his childhood in England and, at age eighteen, went to work for the Shell Oil Company in Africa. When World War II broke out, he joined the Royal Air Force and became a fighter pilot. At the age of twenty-six he moved to Washington, D.C., and it was there he began to write. His first short story, which recounted his adventures in the war, was bought by The Saturday Evening Post, and so began a long and illustrious career.

Going solo : Dahl, Roald, author : Free Download, Borrow, and Going solo : Dahl, Roald, author : Free Download, Borrow, and

What I summed up in a few lines actually occupies most of the book and is some of the most terrifying, most haunting, most comic, and most light-hearted war memoirs I've ever read. Only Roald Dahl can write about war, airplanes crashing, oil tankers being bombed, people burned alive and lives lost, and STILL fit charm and humor in it. Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2011-09-27 17:12:09 Boxid IA151701 Boxid_2 CH131118 Camera Canon EOS 5D Mark II City Harmondsworth, (Middlesex) Donor Each one of those sorties meant running across the airfield to wherever the Hurricane was parked (often 200 yards away), strapping in, starting up, taking off, flying to a particular area, engaging the enemy, getting home again, landing, reporting to the Ops Room and then making sure the aircraft was refuelled and rearmed immediately so as to be ready for another take-off.Also look out for new Roald Dahl apps in the App store and Google Play- including the disgusting TWIT OR MISS! and HOUSE OF TWITS inspired by the revolting Twits. Read more Details I don't feel like I have done enough after listening to him, but my life is my life. Like he says, we don't travel the same way we used to. Flying somewhere is not the same as a boat trip that stops at many ports. He did some crazy things in Africa as well. He was 6'6". He was huge. urn:oclc:671254077 Republisher_operator [email protected] Scandate 20120117060106 Scanner scribe20.shenzhen.archive.org Scanningcenter shenzhen Source

Going Solo by Roald Dahl | Open Library Going Solo by Roald Dahl | Open Library

The balance of the book recounts Dahl's enlistment in the RAF, the pitiful training on antiquated equipment, and experiences with ill prepared leaders. One of the latter sends him off with the wrong coordinates, resulting in a crash landing in no-man's land and months in hospital. I have a very personal relationship with Going Solo (one of my favorite books by one of my all-time favorite authors), so this review is going to be a bit personal and perhaps somewhat irrelevant. Due to the presence of witches, gremlins, Oompa-Loompas and various assorted anthropomorphic animals—not to mention the cast of crazies that populate his short stories for a more mature audience— Roald Dahl is not usually viewed as one of those writers whose fiction is particularly informed by autobiography. Going Solo, the author’s memoir of his young adulthood spent in Africa, should be enough to call that view into question by any reader familiar with even his more imaginative short stories. Following on from Boy, Going Solo was another tremendously important book to me as a child. Where I could relate to his boyhood tales in some way, the next part of his life was a complete window to another world. Read then it was extraordinary and magical; read now I appreciate it on different levels entirely.

So we now had seven half-serviceable Hurricanes left in Greece, and with these we were expected to give air cover to the entire British Expeditionary Force which was about to be evacuated along the coast. The whole thing was a ridiculous farce. I wandered over to my tent. There was a canvas washbasin outside the tent, one of those folding things that stand on three wooden legs, and David Coke was bending over it, sloshing water on his face. He was naked except for a small towel round his waist and his skin was very white. ‘So you made it,’ he said, not looking up. As a young man, Roald Dahl's adventures took him from London to East Africa, until the Second World War began and he became a RAF pilot. And the giraffes would incline their heads very slightly and stare down at me with languorous demure expressions, but they never ran away. I found it exhilarating to be able to walk freely among such huge graceful wild creatures and talk to them as I wished. Then last night I had to go into his room at 10:00 and take the book away from him so he would stop reading it and go to sleep.