I have written a review of this book once before, the book titled Spitfire The History is probably the definative work on the Spitfire. The book itself is technically superb, suitable for anyone who wants to know everything Spitfire related. Is it perfect, alas no there are a couple of things that do anoy me about the book – and yes I do have both editions and find the second infuriating as well.
But I have to be honest, if there is information missing it’s hard to think of. The only missing facts that I can see, is the GPS location for the Spitfires buried in Myanmar (Burma to some of us). You could probably take a guess at where they are using information in the book, as it does list the SOC location for many of the spitfires and it does list every single one of them individually.
What do I think of the book, well as I said have both editions and really do consider it to be the finest work that there is as far as information content goes. What do I find anoying about the book, from a technical perspective absolutely nothing. From a readers view point, I find it extremely anoying in some places. It reminds me of some of the early technical manuals, where they had been translated poorly.
A long time friend surmised it as follows;
“Why did two English speakers write a book in Japanese and then have it translated into English by someone who had Swahili as a first language.”
There are lots of places where the text doesn’t really flow, but given the information in the book – I’ll put up with it.
If you have an interest in the Spitfire whether as a researcher, a model maker or just as aviation enthusiast. This book will likely answer your questions on some of it’s 600+ pages, where it has the service history of some 20,000 Spitfires.
Where to get the book, not so easy as it is out of print at the moment. But a search on Amazon or eBay will return results, but hold onto your hat. I’ve just done a search for the book, there’s a couple on eBay being auctioned off with a few days to go one hasn’t moved but the other is at £35.00. There are several available on Amazon, with prices starting at £100. There are a couple of other specialist book searches online, some of these have prices for the book of anywhere up to £300 – so it is still out there if you want to pay for it.