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Top-Scoring Allied Fighter Pilot of WW II researched and written by E C R Barker. First South African edition hardcover with dust jacket printed by Ashanti, 1992, as part of their Aviators of Africa series. 228 pages with index. Illustrated. Good condition. The story of an outstanding fighter pilot and a great leader of men, the unknown ace of the Royal Air Force. Pattle was born in the Cape and raised on a lonely farm in Namibia. He discovered early in his life a keen desire within him to fly. He was rejected by the South African Air Force in 1933, but became more determined than ever to achieve his ambition. Pattle left South Africa to join the Royal Air Force before the war and achieved a success out of all proportion to expectations. He did much to help the hard-pressed troops on the ground. On 20 April 1941, a sick man, he led the remnants of his own and another squadron against an armada of over a hundred German aircraft. In the desperate fighting that followed, he shot down at least two enemy aircraft and then dived to the rescue of one of his pilots. The odds were too heavy and seconds later his aircraft, with Pattle slumped over the controls, crashed in the Bay of Eleusis.
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