The Sky Suspended

296 Pages·1960·20.777 MB·English

by  Drew Middleton

This book is for
JACK and SUSAN
The Sky Suspended
This book is for
JACK and SUSAN
THE SKY
SUSPENDED
BY
DREW MIDDLETON
Their shoulders held the sky suspended,
They stood, and earth's foundations stay
. . .
—A. E. Housman,
"Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries"
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
NEW YORK LONDON TORONTO
. .
1960
OPEN SHELF.
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO., INC.
119 WEST 40th STREET, NEW YORK 18
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO., Ltd.
6 & 7 CLIFFORD STREET, LONDON W 1
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
20 CRANFIELD ROAD, TORONTO 16
THE SKY SUSPENDED
©
COPYRIGHT I960
BY
DREW MIDDLETON
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THE RIGHT TO REPRODUCE
THIS BOOK, OR ANY PORTION THEREOF, IN ANY FORM
PUBLISHED SIMULTANEOUSLY IN THE DOMINION OF CANADA BY
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO., TORONTO
FIRST EDITION
17 55
FEB '61
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 60-15277
Printed in the United States of America
INTRODUCTION
This book is in part payment of a debt which I, in common
with all who love freedom, owe the pilots of Fighter Com-
mand. To a great degree this is their story. It is also the
story of the pilots and air crews of the Luftwaffe, brave
and steadfast men, terribly mishandled and serving an
odious tyranny. Finally it is a story of the ordinary men
and women of the United Kingdom. The story of 1940
cannot be confined to the battle in the air. The British na-
tional effort included popular resistance to the bombing
of London and the provincial cities as well as the daylight
battle over southeast England. Unless we see the scene as
a whole, we cannot grasp the significance of those events
of twenty years ago.
So many good books have been written about various
aspects of the war in 1940 that it would be impossible to
list them all. For the day-to-day conduct of operations I
have relied upon The Defence of the United Kingdom of
the United Kingdom Military Series. Written by Basil Col-
lier, this is surely one of the finest records of its type. No
historian will be able to write about the war without it.
Volume I of The Royal Air Force, 1939-1945 by Denis
Richards contains the best short account of the Battle of
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INTRODUCTION
Britain that I have read. As the reader will learn, I have
supplemented these accounts with notes from my own
diary of the period and with the log of 85 Squadron. Adolf
Galland's The First and the Last is the best German rec-
ord on the operational level. Captured German documents,
particularly the War Diaries of the Naval Staff and the
minutes of Hitler's conferences with the naval com-
manders, provide an intimate picture of the German High
Command during the invasion period. Hitler as War Lord
by General Haider is a professional soldier's picture of his
terrible chieftain. The best book written in the West about
the invasion is Peter Fleming's Invasion 1940, which ap-
peared in the United States as Operation Sea Lion. On the
bombing of London there is, in addition to the numerous
local histories and the newspaper files, The Blitz by Con-
stantine Fitz Gibbon, a clear and moving story of Lon-
don's trial. Finally I must acknowledge my debt, as every
writer about the period must do, to Sir Winston Churchill's
The Second World War.
To William H. Stoneman, my friend and companion
then as now, the book and I owe a great deal.
D.M.
London
April 8, 1960
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