Dahl, Roald. Over to You. London : Reynal & Hitchcock. 1946. Print.
Oh, God, how I am frightened. Now that I am alone I don't have to hide it; I don't have to hide anything any longer. I can let my face go because no one can see me; because there's twenty-one thousand feet between me and them and because now that it's happening again I couldn't pretend any more even if I wanted to.
Description:
Having recently read Roald Dahl's memoir, Going Solo about his World War II experiences flying for the RAF, I fell in love with his spare, honest writings about his thrilling adventures, and definitely wanted to read much more from him. Luckily among his numerous books for children, I found his Over to You, made up of ten more stories about the men who piloted Hurricane fighter planes in WWII in the desert.
These narrations were probably based on the people, locations, and situations from Dahl's own experiences. They certainly seemed, to me, to be realistic. But even if these tales were entirely fictionalized, each one rang true because they focused on the men themselves, not just the situations they faced, real and imagined. We lucky readers can see up close what these pilots were thinking. What were their plans? How did they to occupy their down time? What were their relationships with the local people near their air bases and with the enemy fighters?
Here's some examples of the captivating stories contained in Over to You:
- A pilot, after four years of flying missions, is overcome with dread about having to fly again, a terror that seizes his every moment before and during his time in the air until he comes into combat at which time all his fear dissipates;
- Pilots save and adopt of very young girl whose family had been killed in enemy strafing of her tiny village;
- Pilots on an off-day decide to free several ordinary women who have been forced into prostitution;
- Crew and friends await the return from a mission of their fellow pilot. But when he eventually lands safely two days later, they find he has no memory of the time that has passed since he flew off;
- A mother senses when her son is on a mission and feels she is in the cockpit with him.
- A pilot returns from a mission, quietly has a drink by himself in the airport bar, and only after much convincing by fellow pilots does he admit he had seen five enemy planes on his mission and shot them all down.
Our two Hurricanes were standing a few yards away, each with that patient, smug look which fighter planes have when the engine is not turning, and beyond them the thin black strip of the sloped down towards the beaches and towards the sea.
Dahl portrays the non-combatant civilians with the same intimacy:
It's always the same. As the bombers move south across the country at night, the people who hear them become strangely silent. For those women whose men are with the planes, the moment is not an easy on to bear.
There you have it. It's a quietly passionate book full of fully-rounded, interesting people with questions, observations, bravery, and fears about the War, their surroundings, other people, and their own position in all of it. Each story, to me, was a gem written in precise prose, detailed enough that I felt I knew and even understood every individual character. What more could any reader ask for in a book? Highly recommended.
[If this book interests you, be sure to check out:]
Memoir of Roald Dahl's flying experiences with the RAF during World War II. Superb writing and adventures in every chapter. (Previously reviewed here.)
Happy reading.
Fred
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