The author trained as an engineer with de Havilland and has written what must be the definitive history of a very important aircraft. I found it relevant to us, as I learnt from it about the unbroken lineage between the 1½ Strutters and Camels of our War, and the Hurricane. I also enjoyed seeing familiar squadron numbers reappearing in World War II. Most importantly, I acquired a deep respect for Sidney Camm, who must surely be one of the best designers of all time.

The Hurricane has always suffered from being less glamorous than the Spitfire(as indeed Camm suffered from being less glamorous than Leslie Howard who played Mitchell in the film First of the Few), and this book does much to address the situation. For example, it points out that three out of every five enemy aircraft shot down in the Battle of Britain fell to Hurricanes. It is written the way history should be written, well illustrated and indexed, very readable and altogether a joy. The question I was left with at the end was no criticism of the book; I read that only one Fighter Command VC was awarded in WW II, (inevitably to a Hurricane pilot, Flt Lt James Nicholson in August 1940), and I wondered not for the first time, why. We would all live in a very different world if the Hurricane had not come along when it did, and I know that its gestation would have been rendered impossible today due to Government interference. After all, a camel (not the Sopwith sort) is a horse designed by a Committee.