Until June 1944, Frank Holland’s war had been similar to that of many of his colleagues. With 184 Squadron in the Second Tactical Air Force, he had flown a Hurricane or Spitfire against a myriad of targets, and he had always got back safely.

But then, on the day after D-Day, disaster struck. During a low flying attack on a marshalling yard in Normandy, he met intense opposition from German anti-aircraft fire, and his Typhoon aircraft was hit and badly damaged. Frank managed to take the aircraft up to 1200 feet but then the engine went dead and his Typhoon soon began heading towards the earth at an accelerating and frightening speed. Struggling frantically, he just barely got free of the cockpit and baled out four or five seconds before the crash. His parachute didn’t open but he fell into a wood, smashing through the branches of an oak to dangle precariously fifteen feet up. Breathing hard, he experienced a few seconds of relief at survival. But then he realised German troops would be swarming around within minutes. He had to get away, and fast… 

So begins Frank’s tremendous adventure, dramatically recounted here, as he evaded capture for months, sometimes by barely a whisker, to make it back home to the city of his birth, Cambridge.

256 pages with some b/w photographs.

Signed to the title page