Spitfire first became a household word during the Blitz, but it was not the first service the valiant aircraft had performed. At Dunkirk a year earlier, pilots had provided aerial support as the allied forces began their evacuation from France.

In an attempt to answer the questions of the man on the street, Brian Lane, who wrote under the pseudonym of B. J. Ellan, tells of what it is that a fighter pilot thinks and feels when he is fighting in the skies, from the sunlit coast of Belgium to the lovely countryside of Kent.

Having been with the squadron since the beginning of the war, as a flight commander and C.O., the character and bravery of the men he knew and served with are deftly rendered.

Self-deprecating and richly detailed, Spitfire! is a classic Battle of Britain memoir, and one of only a few to be published in that dramatic period of history.