Fire by Order by E. W. Maslen-Jones - 9781781592601

Fire by OrderRecollections of Service with 656 Air Observation Post Squadron in Burma\nAuthor(s): E. W. Maslen-Jones\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: Pen & Sword Books Ltd, United Kingdom\nImprint: Pen & Sword Aviation\nISBN-13: 9781781592601, 978-1781592601\nSynopsis\nThe debt owed by 14th Army to 656 Air OP Squadron in the reconquest of Burma was immeasurable. From 1943 until the end of the war, these three flights of five tiny Auster aircraft provided air observation for the whole of the Army fighting the Japanese in the jungle below. A likely explanation, if Ted Maslen-Jones is typical of his colleagues, is that they were essentially modest men who, in their own eyes, were only doing their job and were in fact rather privileged to be sailing above the canopy while the ground troops were slogging it out somewhere below them. Several times the author refers to the sheer exhilaration of flying over that beautiful but still unhappy country. Now at last, thanks to the recolle.