First Light will rank among the finest of Second World War memoirs -- Tony Gould * Independent * Amazingly fresh and immediate . It's a good thing to see this kind of movie and remind ourselves that what we enjoy and even deride today cost the ultimate sacrifice of millions. Bringing the aircraft back to Duxford and taxiing in I thought immediately of a particular line from his book that stands out for me, where he remarks of his first landing in a Spitfire at Duxford, seventy-nine years before me. It was especially poignant to feel the author's loss of hope for his own survival as his tours wore on, and he lost increasing numbers of friends.

Philip West’s knowledge of aviation generally and 617 Squadron generally has produced a number of interesting and sensitive paintings. Wellum claimed a Heinkel He 111 bomber shot down on 11 September 1940, and a quarter share in a Junkers Ju 88 downed on 27 September.My gamble to go into instructing first in an effort to gain a lot of tailwheel experience in a short space of time, rather than to the airlines and more money, was starting to look like it might have been worth it.

I truly enjoyed Geoffrey Wellum's story of his training and chuckled a good many times whilst reading about one thing or another. There is very little to criticise here but I have subtracted one star from my rating by virtue of a few perceived minor faults. I told him about how his book had made me get my act together and how I’d graduated from Cranwell, just three days prior.

I have had the honour of meeting Geoffrey Wellum on a couple of occasions and found him to be a truly humble man. I am a retired airline pilot who has flown over almost everywhere he has mentioned,flown in the same beautiful skies, as he had,but without the fear of flak or fighters. Tragedy strikes again and again as a steady stream of his friends are killed and badly wounded, and the pressure on these pilots to keep flying is relentless. It rather brilliantly managed to convey the thoughts and feelings of the author while in the cockpit.