Wings on My Sleeve Book - WWII Naval Aviation Memoir by Eric Brown | Historical Biography & Military History | Perfect for Aviation Enthusiasts & History Buffs

Well written about one of the world's greatest test pilots. He had nine lives, surviving some dangerous scrapes. Highly recommended.Eric Brown is simply the greatest pilot that there has ever been. He landed more times on an aircraft carrier to anyone in history. Not to mention the fact that he also was the first to land a jet, a twin engine aircraft and a rotary wing aircraft on a carrier as well.During his career he flew 487 different types of aircraft.The story of his life is truly amazing. Some of the stories he describes include; witnessing Hitler shake the hand of Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympics, being among the troops that liberated Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and interrogating Hermann Goring in his cell at Nuremberg.I recommend watching the BBC documentary on his life on YouTube.I enjoyed reading about a real test pilot.In this book, Captain Brown is sitting next to you and telling you the incredible story of his life. While his writing style will probably not win him any prize (being the most decorated FAA pilot in history he certainly doesn't need any!), the book is written in an easy to follow conversational style. It is just amazing how flying 8 different aircraft (mostly prototypes) in one day can be part of your daily routine, and that's what Captain Brown did for many years. To say he is a walking encyclopedia of aircraft in the 1939-1970 period would be an understatement, and he has the distinction of being one of the very few who have flown almost all mayor types in WWII of any air force - that is not only UK, but also US, Germany, Italy, Japan...In just shy of 300 pages you cannot go into every detail when presenting a lifespan of interesting adventures, so this book is a good introduction into the human being behind all the records, and puts many things into perspective. It certainly also serves as a good companion to Captain Browns many other books (if you can find them), which are usually devoted to more delimited topics and thus enter into much more detail.There are also a few very interesting pictures, correctly captioned and wonderfully accompanying the text. Regarding the binding (see other reviews), the book is rather heavy for its small size, and the binding is a bit narrow, but nothing that will get in the way of an extraordinary reading experience. You would probably need quite some harsh treatment to get a few pages loose, so if you open the book and pages do fall out, then you should return it!I seldom recommend any book as a "must have", but this one is one of these that any aircraft enthusiast simply cannot miss - highly recommended.After training, Brown flies F4F Wildcats (called the Martlet, in British service) from an escort carrier in the Atlantic. That part of the book is a gripping, well-written account of a part of the war I hadn't been familiar with.After that, he becomes a test pilot at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough. For the remainder of the war and on into the dawn of the jet age, it's a series of entertaining and often brief anecdotes with little structure.After that, it's a series of increasingly uninteresting anecdotes. He meets Prince Philip but has no good stories to tell about the event. He does have something to say about the post-war Luftwaffe's disastrous decision to purchase the F-104.Packed with so many interesting stories.I wish there had been more details but would take multiple books!No pilot will ever match his life in aviation.Captain Brown died a few years ago at the age of (I believe) 97. His two books Wings of Luftwaffe and Wings of the Navy are very key resources for anyone interested in planes used by Germany and Great Britain in WW2. Brown was one of the best and certainly the most experienced test pilot in the world and set the record for both number of planes flown and number of traps (carrier landings). His modesty and humor are demonstrated repeatedly in this book. He was lucky several times but he was always careful and prepared. He also had a feel for an airplane that he is very good at translating in his writing. In one case, he warned another experienced test pilot of his perception of weakness in the empennage (basically the tail assembly) of a German plane (I think the He 162) being tested after the war. However, the other pilot used excessive rudder and was killed during a landing approach. When I started reading Brown's books some 20 years ago, I saw very little about him in the U.S. There is now a well produced documentary about his life. This autobiography is a good read and covers Brown's experiences over a career of many years. Brown was also fluent in German and his comments on his interviews with several famous Nazi officials (including Goring) are also valuable.Eric Brown was probably the most influential test pilot in world history, and almost the polar opposite of the US test pilots portrayed in Tom Wolfe's 'The Right Stuff'. Sort-spoken, a lowland Scot, and modest, he nevertheless had an extraordinary life, test flying 487 different types of aircraft, making the first-ever deck landings and take-off in a Jet aircraft. He shot down two FW Condors while operating from a tiny aircraft carrier in 1941; these were the most formidable of aircraft, and when his ship was sunk, he was roped together in the freezing Atlantic with 22 other young men. They were in the sea for at least four hours, and when picked up, there was only one other survivor. Yet when you read his account of this absolute horror, you would not have known what he went through. His language skills, perfect in German and French as well as English, meant he had interviews with Herman Goering as well as translating interviews with the monsters who ran the concentration camp at Belsen. When he landed at a German air force base thinking it had been taken by the Allies, he compelled the garrison there by the sheer force of his personality, hundreds of them, to surrender to him. It's a terrific book, and there's none other like it. But it's also charming and modest - not the sort of man Wolfe would have been interested in. An old-fashioned hero.This is the author's biography of his flying life. I read it because I was intrigued by the flying statistics he amassed: most different types of planes flown, most carrier deck landings, first jet landing on a carrier. An easy book to read, well illustrated, which will especially appeal to plane buffs. Being keen on naval history, I found his wartime experiences on the auxiliary carrier, HMS Audacity, and subsequent work with carrier aviation most interesting. His long list of planes flown includes the Me262 and Me163.He got into flying through learning german at school and a pre-war trip to Germany. During the latter he was taken for a flight and got the flying bug, learning to fly before the war. He was actually in Germany when the war started. Expecting to be arrested and imprisoned, he was, surprisingly, escorted to the Swiss border.He opted for the navy's Fleet Air Arm, instead of the RAF, because at that time they had a shortage of pilots. His posting to HMS Audacity, used for convoy protection, saw him fighting Fw Condors. He survived the Audacity's loss and the carrier expertise he developed there led him into his life as a test pilot and his long list of different planes flown. His wartime flying was in both allied and enemy planes, assessing specific handling issues or evaluating a plane's capabilities. For example, he landed a Mosquito on an aircraft carrier - a tight squeeze. As the war came to an end, he flew captured enemy planes, including various German jets and propeller planes. His flying expertise took him to many countries and flying many plane types. With some planes, he gives little great insight into them, with others much more. You get a feeling for the risks involved, but he never seems to stress them, but clearly the life of a test pilot was incredibly dangerous.It's always difficult for most, if not all people, to name their 'Hero', but for me this man is most certainly up there with the most qualified for that honour, and 2,407 carrier landings? 487 types of aircraft? Survivor of a torpedo sinking? Good grief! If you are in any way into aircraft, combat, engineering, flying, humour, humanity, philosophy, history, psychology, then look no further. PS: For a taster of this magical man, go to BBC R4 and search in the 'catch up' for him on Desert Island Discs. I am so sad he's gone and I regret not having been able to meet him and shake his hand. Sadly missed.A fabulous, no doubt in many ways fortunate life of an almost unbelievably experienced pilot, written about in a clear, somewhat dry and self depreciating style. His account of his service life is so jam packed with interest that what would appear to others, or in other books as major events, just have to fit in briefly with everything else. For example, his interviewing of Goering at the end of the War barely rates two paragraphs, amongst all the other adventures. I am sure the author was deservedly proud of many of the things he achieved, but it comes across with a degree of modesty and self depreciation that makes it all the more appreciable. Even the disappointments in his career, the effective disbandment of the fixed wing Fleet Air Arm, or his loss of opportunity for promotion due to posts being cut, are handled in a factual, mature manner. A very enjoyable read, like a ‘Boys’ Own’ adventure story, of seemingly endless challenges. Fascinating stuff.Couldn't put this book down once I started reading it, if you're a pilot or aviation enthusiast, you'll love it. Eric Brown's career in the fleet air arm was even more exciting than Sharkey Ward's, he test flew hundreds of aircraft including world war two captured German planes like ju88s, FW 190s and the experimental ones like the Komet163b rocket fighter, Arado 234 jet reconnaissance plane and Messerschmit 262 jet fighter. He also met with and interviewed Hannah Reich, Herman Goering and general Galland and pioneered landing jets onto carriers while also testing phantoms and sabre jets, altogether a very productive and interesting life indeed.