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KITTYHAWK DOWN: Dennis Copping & ET574
by Jonathan Nicholas
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐


My thanks to NetGalley for sending me this book in exchange for my honest review.

In 1942, RAF Flight Sergeant Dennis Copping was taking a short flight across Egypt in a single-seat Kittyhawk fighter, designation ET574. The plane would eventually be found later, 300 miles inside the Sahara Desert, crash-landed, but virtually intact. Dennis Copping was never seen again. There was evidence he had survived the crash and had remained with his plane for a while, but no more was known of his fate. The author has pieced together accounts from real people, in real events and places, blended them with fiction and created this novel.

I admit this has taken me far too long to read. And now I’m finished, I think I’ll stick it back on my TBR list to read again, but this time in one go.

Jonathan Nicholas takes you back in time to the desert war, allowing you to visualise events. That to me is a major lift for any book, but for a fictional story based on true events, it made Dennis Copping's life that much more poignant.

Occasionally I found the style of writing a little challenging, which may explain why it has taken me several months to finally finish, but once I understood the context, I had no difficulty in enjoying the read.
The accounts of flight training, and the desert war in particular, easily envelope you, making you feel like the proverbial ‘fly on the wall’, reflecting the extensive researched carried out by the author.

Overall, this is a well written work of fiction, with just the right amount of factual information to make it feel plausible. I recommend Kittyhawk Down to readers of historical fiction, and actually to anyone who likes a well written novel. I have given this book four stars

Dennis Copping & the plane he was flying ET574 went missing somewhere over the desert in 1942.
This novel is about Dennis & his fellow pilots, written with compassion & empathy by Jonathan Nicholas. The writer has certainly done his research & knows more than a thing or two about the planes they flew & the enemy that attacked them relentlessly during the desperate months of the campaign to halt the advance of Rommel.
This isn't a novel about victors or vanquished, it recounts in merciless detail all the squalid filth of daily life in the desert, but also the amazing camaderie of those young men who had to watch as their friends died one by one & had to wonder if they would be next.
The beauty of the book is in the detail & the battle to retain humanity in the heart during the horrors of war.
Seventy years later ET574 was finally found but the mystery of what happened to Dennis has not been solved.

This is an account of what might've/could've happened to RAF pilot D. Copping.... & is actually very good! It begins when a plane was found in 2012 in a desert in Egypt, & then goes back in time to tell of this young man's journey of entering the RAF , his pilot training, & then deployment to N. Africa in 1940. It tells of the daily lives of those pilots & crews, during those early WWII years. Also tells a lot about the different 'aeroplanes' that the RAF used over that time period & place.
I really liked that at the beginning of the book, during the 2012 part.....the wording was like modern day vernacular, then when it went to the 1940's part...the wording went to the vernacular of that time period...... you knew right away that you were in a different time period! They had to deal with many of the same issues as we do today, but talked/used different wording......that aspect really put the reader in the right place/time. A very good epilogue also, telling about what happened at the end of 1942.
I rounded up my rating to reward the easy educational aspect of this book, as I learned quite a bit myself...even my being an avid history reader! If you like WWII or military history, this is an easy, good read. I did receive an e-ARC of the book from The Book Guild via NetGalley, in return for reading it & offering my own fair/honest review.

Kittyhawk Down, by Jonathan Nicholas, is the dramatized story about the doomed final flight byFlight Sergeant Dennis Topping of the RAF in a damaged P-40 Kittyhawk airplane. In June, 1942, Topping was flying between two British airfields in Egypt for repairs and maintenance. The Kittyhawk disappeared, only to be found 70 years later by Polish oil workers in a remote area of the Sahara Desert. Taking these true facts as the structural bones of a story, we follow Sergeant Topping’s story training as a flyer in the RAF and envisions the life leading up to the disappearance of the plane including the final flight. The story is interesting: the author’s loving affection for airplane equipment is infused throughout the personal journey of Topping. Thanks to NetGalley for the chance to read Kittyhawk Down: for those folks who love too read about World War II aircraft you will greatly enjoy this book!