- ID
- b172
- Title
- 'There's Something in the Air'
- Genre
- Story
- Page Count
- 9
- Word Count
- 2680
- Publisher
- Blue Book Magazine
- Publication Year
- 1943
- Document Types
- First-Person Narratives
- Flying Officer X Byline
- Topics
- Pilots, War
A Flying Officer X story that portrays the heady atmosphere within a squadron during one summer, and focuses in particular on the spectacular successes of two pilots and the difference in their temperaments, flying styles, and post-battle rituals.
The story is set at RAF Tangmere where No 1 Squadron Fighter Command was based, and the character of Anderson is based on the squadron's charismatic and inspiring young commander, Squadron Leader James MacLachlan, DSO, DFC and two bars (MacLachlan also features in The Man in Action and The First Squadron and is the prototype for McAlister in the story The Beginning of Things).
The character of Auerbach is based on the Czech flying ace, Karel Kuttelwascher DFC and bar, the RAF's most successful night intruder pilot. Both MacLachlan and Kuttelwascher are described in the non-fiction piece The First Squadron.
Published in:
- The Blue Book Magazine (August 1943)
- There's Something in the Air (1943)
- How Sleep the Brave and Other Stories (1943)
- Something in the Air (1944)
- The Stories of Flying Officer 'X' (1952)
- Night Attack: Short Stories from the Second World War (1984)
- The Complete Stories of Flying Officer 'X' (Bloomsbury ebook, 2018)
