In a Moon's Course

The Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) in Britain provided a remarkable air service during World War II. In the manner of a modern courier company the ATA delivered from the factories and transatlantic arrival points the hundreds of aircraft that were needed each day by the RAF and Royal Navy Air Arm.

ATA personnel were often the parents, brothers and sisters or aunts and uncles of those serving on the front line. Some were World War I veteran pilots, others were experienced volunteers from overseas but many more with little or no flying experience learned to fly fighters and bombers across Britain. Ex-butlers, secretarial staff, hairdressers and retired teachers became planners, aviation electricians, aircraft re-fuelling staff and tow tug operators to fill the many ground-based roles.

In a Moon’s Course revisits through flight simulation 28 of their flights. The background to the ATA, the stories of the flights and the simulation details for each one are included. Re-creations of flights by well-known ATA pilots including Lettice Curtis, Peter Mursell and Hugh Bergel are featured - but so are flights made by others unknown today other than through a fragment of their log book on other web sites..

The title of this book comes from the epitaph in St. Paul’s Cathedral for those ATA pilots and flight engineers who died in air accidents while making these deliveries.

At the end of the war in Europe the ATA disbanded rapidly and disappeared from public view. The old men and young women flying Spitfires and Lancasters one day returned to ‘normal lives’ the next. As Lettice Curtis wrote, they became 'Forgotten Pilots'.

In 2008, those still living were awarded the ATA Veterans Badge. There is now increasing visibility around the important role these pilots, flight engineers and ground crew played. This book remembers some of the people but focuses on the flights that they made across Britain and into Europe. Flights by people who were once told "This great service faithfully, unobtrusively and constantly performed has earned for every member of the A.T.A. the gratitude of the Country.”

Here are the titles of the stories:

1: Captain Mrs. Wilberforce
2: The First Hurricane
3: Gaggle of Geese
4: No Brakes, No Electrics, No Hydraulics
5: Fairweather
6: Tobin
7: The Walrus at New Brighton
8: Havoc
9: Spitfire from Prestwick
10: In Memoriam
11: A Spitfire for Malta
12: Out of the Mist
13: The Fosse Way Landing
14: Crowder
15: To the Shetlands
16: Under the Bridge
17: Dam Buster Delivery
18: Balloons
19: The Daily Round
20: A Tiger on a Summer’s Day
21. A Halifax to the East Coast
22: The Return to France
23: Mustang
24: The Flying Nightingale
25: Collecting General Bór
26: The Sutherland
27: Catalinas from Greenock
28: The ‘VE Day’ Flight