This book is undated, but checking a Website dedicated to the author makes me think it is a first edition, published in 1949. I was surprised when I removed the dust-jacket to see that it appears to be signed by George Rochester. This title was in a box of old books that belonged to my uncle, so unfortunately, I cannot give any more info as to whether it was signed personally by the author himself. It does contain several black and white illustrations and the original price was 4/6!
Scanned From CoverTIGER HAWK is a thrilling story of mystery and adventure in the Royal Air Force. The secret R.A.F. Experimental Station of Grey Ness, on the lonely coast of north-west Scotland, is raided by a large band of armed men. The station's guards are killed; hangars and laboratories are blown to atoms; and then—within a few seconds—the raiders vanish completely, just as if they had been spirited into thin air.
It is to solve the mysterious disappearance of the raiders, and to exact retribution for their crime, that "Tiger Hawk" —otherwise Wing Commander Hawkes of British Air Intelligence—arrives on the scene. Excitement reaches fever-pitch as "Tiger Hawk" unravels the problem and runs the enemy to earth.
WHEN George Rochester's pen flows, his planes fly and his pilots fight with roaring reality through chapters packed with breathless incident and daring deed.
The smell of doped wings and hot oil is in the nostrils; the shudder of blazing guns and the whip of the slipstream can be almost felt; high adventure becomes sky-high.
Background to this living realism and to the immense popularity enjoyed by this author is George Rochester’s own flying life and experiences with the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Air Force.
In action over the battlefields of 1918, his plane was shot down. Landing, wounded, behind enemy lines, Rochester was taken prisoner, and was moved back from camp to camp as the Allies advanced. His release from captivity came only after the Armistice in World War I.
Demobilised a year later, George Rochester spent 20 years as an air-minded civilian and author— passing on to boys his keenness for flying and his intimate knowledge of the Royal Air Force.
Within a few weeks of the outbreak of World War 2 he was back in R.A.F. uniform, first on airfield-and-station defence, and later in a post at the Air Ministry.
A civilian again, George Rochester is writing stories as thrillingly realistic in these days of jet-planes and supersonic speeds as in the days of the bygone bi-planes and open cockpits of yesterday.