Fast planes, deadly dogfights, brave pilots: the Battle of Britain has no shortage of heroes. So as I sat down to write Taking London, the first challenge was figuring out which individuals would help tell the story, Winston Churchill was the obvious choice to be a primary character. He's the tentpole on which the narrative rests. Air Marshal Hugh Dowding was also indispensable. Though relatively unknown in America, his brilliance has led to monuments and postage stamps in his honor in England.
When I signed the contracts to write a book about the Battle of Britain, my first thought was that it would be easy to research. Plenty of other books about the topic. Lots of museum displays. Actual BoB aircraft still flying after all these years, as I knew from a previous visit to the Imperial War Museum's Duxford annex. But after reading Len Deighton's Fighter to better understand the story arc and begin to contemplate a way to tell the story from a unique perspective I realized I had a problem: too much information.
Just six weeks to go!
The obvious question about my choice of topic is how does a writer in Orange County, California come to write a book about the Battle of Britain? The Lord works in mysterious ways, but as near as I can divine it all began with the 1969 movie.
