THE FLYING SWORD
The Story of No. 601
(County of London) Squadron
Royal Auxiliary Air Force

TOM MOULSON

MACDONALD: LONDON
1964

First edition.
Its emblem was a Flying Sword but people knew it as "The Millionaires' Squadron". Its first Commanding Officer was a romantic aristocrat to whom the aeroplane was a development of the horse, but its second one couldn't fly. A rival squadron bombed it with rubbish and dead animals. One of its officers bought a filling station to avoid petrol rationing. It was equipped with a plane that could not be mastered. This was No. 601 (County of London) Auxiliary Squadron, first of the week-end air force squadrons.

Tom Moulson was a pilot in 601 from 1950 until its end in 1957. He describes its inception at White's Club in 1925; the fun-loving days of the 'thirties; the grim violence of the Battle of Britain and an even' sterner test to follow; the closing campaigns in North Africa and Italy; post-war renaissance and eventual, strongly resisted, disbandment.

Was this an air force on the cheap, or an exclusive club for petrol-wasting joy-riders? This book provides, besides entertainment, a comprehensive and authentic answer to the question.

22 x 14 cm. 184 pp + b/w photo plates.

Good + condition, dust jacket price clipped and covered with sticky back plastic. Foxing to the page edges.