Sailor in the Air: The Memoirs of Vice-Admiral Richard Bell Davies, V.C., C.B., D.S.O., A.F.C. With a Foreword by Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Longmore, G.C.B., D.S.O.

London: Peter Davies, (1967). First Edition. Octavo, boards (hardcover), gilt letters, x + 245 pp. Very Good+, with bookplate and light foxing (age darkened spotting) to page edges; in a Very Good+, mylar protected dust jacket with light foxing. From dust jacket: Outstanding as a seaman, even aong those who received their Dartmouth schooling at the tail end of the period when cadets were trained in sail, the author’s successive appointments on the Mediterranean and China stations seemed to indicate exclusively a seafaring future. His lively accounts of some legendary characters with whom he served offer splendid reading; these include the notorious ‘Spuddy’ Carver, a well-known bully, Commander of the Switsure. It was in 1910 when Grahame-White flew an aircraft over the fleet that the author’s career involuntarily made a violent change of course. Privately he learned to fly and at last joined the Naval Air Wing of the Royal Flyin gCorps in 1913. He gives a unique picture of the hazards and vicissitudes of flying, the happy-go-lucky spirit which attended forced landings -- preferably in a field near a likely-looking house for a good lunch -- and the primitive instruments for air navigation, bomb sights and indeed aircraft control, involving liberal use of Sandow elastic. He began his important work for the early carriers after a hectic period of operational flying, during which he won the D.S.O. in 1915 for one of the first air attacks on Zeebrugge. His Victoria Cross, later the same year, marked one of the most amazing feats in the annals of that award, when at Gallipoli in single-seater fighter he landed under enemy fire, picked up a wounded comrade and flew him to safety. As his narrative reveals he was involved in carrier design (highly experimental), the first arrester gear and barriers for flight decks and the launching of aircraft at sea. From his position in the Naval Air Section at the Admiralty between the wars -- and this is one of the most important parts of the book -- he had an unrivalled knowledge of the policy questions arising between Admiralty and Air Ministry, the workings of the Balfour Committee and the constant arguments that went on between the two Services... ‘nineteen years of friction,’ as he describes it. During this time there were seagoing appointments, in command of H.M.S. Royal Sovereign, H.M.S. Conrwall and H.M.S. Cumberland, but the Fleet Air Arm was always his primary concern, and although he retired in 1941 he was soon back again, accepting a lower rank in order to command a seagoing ship, the trials carrier Pretoria Castle. This wonderfully active life is related here with a charm, modesty and humour which help to make the book (that was completed shortly before his death in February 1966) a memorable one.