Table of Contents

Introduction
1: The allure of the flyer
2: A man's world
3: The flyer in love
4: Husbands and fathers
5: The flyer and fear
6: A darker blue
7: The new Achilles? literature, technology and violence
8: Coming home
Conclusion

About the Author

Martin Francis was educated at the universities of Manchester and Oxford. He has published widely on a variety of aspects of twentieth-century British history. After holding several positions in the United Kingdom, notably at Royal Holloway, University of London, since 2003 he has been the inaugural Henry R. Winkler Associate Professor of History at the University of Cincinnati.

Reviews

A rich exposition of the airman's hallowed place in the iconography of wartime Britain, revealing, in the process, the many-layered connections between myths of martial masculiity and the lives of men and women in wartime.
*Michael Roper, English Historical Review*

Well-researched, analytical and well-crafted.
*Royal Air Force Historical Society*

A compelling exploration.
*History Today*

Illuminating.
*Susan Pedersen, London Review of Books*

A wonderfully fresh attempt to explore the culture of the Second World War RAF flyer and the story of masculinity in mid 20th century. A brilliant use of a broad range of sources inc. memoirs, novels, plays and movies as well as official records. A great exploration of the many contradictions within the culture of RAF flyers - as both chivalric knights and mass murderers, as glamorous male heroes and as horribly mutilated victims.
*Judges of the Longman-History Today Book Awards 2010*

The Flyer is an extensive and intensive analysis of the men of the Royal Air Force.
*20th Century British History*

Thoughtful, thorough work.
*James T. Crouse, Times Higher Education*

A wonderful survey of the time.
*Jonathan Sale, The Independent*

Relies heavily on empirical studies to aid taking right decisions. These features make this book so special and worth reading.
*The Swiss Review of International Economic Relations*

Fascinating reading.
*Roger Moorhouse, BBC History Magazine*

A lively, accessible, and very worthy contribution to this most fascinating subject.
*Garry Campion, War in History*

An excellent book and must take a high position among the books dealing with the RAF in the Second World War.
*Bill Spence, Yorkshire Gazette and Herald*

Martin Francis's The Flyer superbly reconfigures the tale of the heroes to whom so many owed so much His wide-ranging, playful and often astonishing assemblage of facts, figures and stories give his portrait of the flyers poignancy and vividness.
*Ellen Ross, History Workshop Journal*

Well-researched, elegantly written, and cogently argued
*History*

Remarkable and highly original a deeply human book
*Gender and History*

The Flyer provides a startlingly clear and arresting portrait of the layers of image and private realities of a small group accorded singular public acclaim that ... has little diminished with time
*H-Albion Reviews*

The Flyer brilliantly recreates the world of these airmen, the way the nation viewed them, and how they viewed themselves.
*Matthew Grant, Reviews in History*

The Flyer is a fascinating example of cultural history at its very best. Francis weaves pertinent examples into a compelling analysis, succeeding in making his book highly readable. It will appeal to the general reader interested in the RAF and its personnel and to the socio-cultural historian with its sophisticated analysis of male subjectivities and popular memory.
*Juliette Pattinson, Cultural and Social History*