Six Weeks Of Blenheim Summer An Raf Officers Memoir Of The Battle Of France 1940 I Alastair Panton by Alastair Panton, Compiled And Edited By, Victoria Panton Bacon 9781849546683, 1849546681 instant download after payment.

"As I write, I can clearly recall the stinging heat of a burning Blenheim, smells, tastes, expressions, sounds of voices and, most of all, fear gripping deep in me''.

My grandfather, Alastair Panton was an RAF reconnaissance pilot flying Bristol Blenheims in the Battle of France during the summer of 1940. His role was to look for the enemy and provide photographs to help commanders planning defence and attack. During those fateful weeks, his life was filled with extraordinary drama. Alastair witnessed much of which human beings are capable – including atrocity and despair but also hope, courage and even laughter – and he showed no small measure of courage himself. 

He was shot down four times.

I know this not because Alastair spoke of it, but because afterwards he wrote an account called Six Weeks of Blenheim Summer. I found my grandfather’s memoir in an old brown envelope, nestled in a box among some of my father’s wartime model aeroplanes shortly after he died in August 2012. After reading the transcript I felt compelled to get it published, to remember Alastair and also as a mark of gratitude to the many brave and courageous Airmen and Women who served alongside of him.

Flying Officer Alastair Panton RAF was just 23 when his squadron was deployed across the English Channel as part of the Allied defensive efforts in France. 

They were increasingly desperate days.
Pushed back to the beaches as the German blitzkrieg rolled through the Low Countries and on into France, by 4 June 1940, the evacuation of the Allied forces from Dunkirk had just been completed. 

A little over two weeks later France surrendered.
Flying vital, dangerous, low-level Operations throughout the campaign in direct support of the BEF on the ground in an unarmed Bristol Blenheim was never going to be easy, but with the Luftwaffe's aerial supremacy, it rapidly became almost suicidal. 

At the height of the fighting he was involved in his squadron's Aircrews lost 2 aircraft for every day.