Reviews
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Wings Day
'Wings' Day by Sydney Smith, DFC
Reviewed: 2013-10-30, 00:00, My Rating: 4.0 out of 5, review contains spoilers: No
Originally published in 1968, this biography of Wing Commander Day (RAF) focuses entirely on the war experiences of his subject, captured in the early days of the war, and spent the next five and a half years as Senior British Officer (SBO) in various POW camps, but not above joining escapes himself.
After taking part in the Great Escape, Day was recaptured and transferred to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, from which he also escaped.
The book is written as a story, rather than as a work of scholarship, and the back cover notes that the author, Sydney Smith (Squadron Leader Eric Sydney-Smith RAF), was imprisoned alongside Day for four years. So the author's first-hand knowledge both of Day and of the experience of the POW comes through strongly.
However Smith very much tells Day's story, not his own. Dates are not important for Smith - you can read pages without knowing more than the year or the season when these events took place.
At times the view is the somewhat abstract view of a high-ranking SBO, but the narration of the experience of Sachsenhausen is deeply personal.
Recommended.
'Wings' Day on Amazon
