Pierre Clostermann (1921–2006)

Phenomenal from start to finish, Clo Clo doesn't shy away from the hard facts of the deadly day to day. The chapter on how fear works alone would be worth the price of entry.

This is the story of France's leading ace as told by himself, Pierre Clostermann. His English is very good. He flew 420 missions with the RAF as a fighter pilot and shot down 33 German planes.

We begin following his story after he started with the RAF. When the war started he was in America studying engineering. His father sent him a telegram telling him to join up with De Gaulle or he was no son of his. So he traveled to England, let it be know he built his own plane at 17 and already knew show more how to fly. The RAF picked him up sent him for some additional training and put him in the Spitfire. While friends and fellow squadron pilots when down in flames around him he survived despite being shot many time and crash landing on multiple occasions.


After many missions towards the end of the war he wrote this description of what it was like to be a fighter pilot fighting to free France after they had liberated Paris: "We of the Free French Air Forces, to whom the Armee de l"Air owed everything, especially honour, we who rushed into the holocaust one after the other, as happy as kids all the same-we, who were proud to start all over again, to mock the odds against us, wangling extra tours of ops, fagged out, dead beat, nerves in tatters, lungs burnt out with oxygen-we always got the thick end of the stick.

The rare survivors of this four year long effort had wanted more than anything else to go home, to tread French soil again, to see their loved ones again, to live again the life of the Paris streets, or of their peaceful native town. But they had quickly come back bemused and uncomprehending, though as yet unembittered. They had been overwhelmed with Resistance stories, with tales of heroic deeds; the same words that had been dinned into their ears a hundred times over: "How lucky you were to be in London. Here we suffered. If you only knew what risks we ran! In spite of all this we kicked the Huns out. You can't understand what it was like. So-and-so was shot, so-and so was tortured, deported. What? You're a pilot? It's easy to see decorations weren't hard to come by in London!"

Pilots didn't understand all this. They had done their best. They didn't want flowers or jollifications. They expected no reward, except to see their homes again, even if they were in ruins. They preferred to keep quiet, but deep down their was a profound feeling of injustice. What had they gone through? They had only risked being roasted alive, trapped under the blazing remains of a Spitfire, or seeing the earth surge up before them, imprisoned in the narrow metal coffin of a cockpit with it's hood jammed, you count the four, three, two, second you have left to live. Three times a day for months on end, they had hurled their poor shrinking bodies into the flak, missing death by a hairs breath, each time, until the last....

War, for us was not the desperate bayonet charge of a thousand human beings, sweating with fear, supporting and sustaining each other in a helpless anonymous massacre. For us, it was a deliberate act, individual act, a conscience, scientific sacrifice. Unaided, alone, each one of us had every day to conquer the stab of fear in our breast, to preserve, reform, our ebbing store of will power. We had to do all that ten times, a hundred times, a thousand times, and then after each mission, take up again a normal healthy life-an appalling strain. The moment we stepped down from our planes, we found other human beings like us, the same flesh and blood, but who walked about, made love, went to the pictures, listened to the wireless as they smoked their pipes and read a book-and who knew if they would be alive the next day? What human nerves could go on standing up to this?" show less

The Big Show was published in 1951 not long after the events it describes. French pilot Pierre Clostermann, who was flying for the RAF, kept a detailed daily diary and claims he made few revisions and thus events are as fresh as the day they happened. William Faulkner called it the finest book of its type from the war, and it sold millions of copies in the 50s. Clostermann comes across as quiet character just doing his job. After the war he earned the accolade "France's First Fighter" from show more General Charles de Gaulle, he was their number one ace. Nowhere is this said in the book, nowhere is he called an ace or anything special, just a regular guy.

The book is largely made up of combat scenes. They are various: long range bomber escort, dog fights against many German plane types including jets, raids on airports, dodging flak, raids on moving trains, ships, beaches. Hidden facilities, lone-wolf attacks. The descriptions of the violence are intense, but he also keeps an optimistic cheery attitude, life is easy come and go. His seems to have a sixth sense of when to attack and when to stay out of the fracas. He fought four long years on 100s of missions was shot up and down many times. Remarkable story. He lived a long life and took an anti-war stance during the 1991 Gulf War - he made the right move one last time. show less

One of the best of the accounts I've read of WW2 in the air written by a pilot. This ranks alongside Wellum's First Light in my opinion.
Don't be put off by the fact that the writer is French or that his story begins well after the Battle of Britain.