Five Of The Few by Steve Darlow (Grub Street, £10)

It was the height of the Blitz: London was suffering its eighth month of German night-bombing.

Terry’s twin-engined Beaufighter was flown that night by Wing Commander Tom Pike. It took off from RAF Tangmere in Sussex at 20 minutes past midnight. Terry’s job was to look out for the telltale blips on his Airborne Interception (AI) system: an early form of radar.

What happened next is recounted in vivid detail in Five Of The Few, an account of survivors of the Battle of Britain and the Blitz, by Steve Darlow.

The book uses a combination of Wing Commander Pike’s combat report interspersed with Terry’s own memories.

An enemy aircraft – a Heinkel 111 – was spotted about 500 yards away, and 300 feet above the Beaufighter.

“Range was closed to about 200 yards and a one second burst from four cannon and four MG guns set the enemy on fire,” Wg Cdr Pike reported.

Terry, a retired company director who now lives in Wheldrake, takes up the story.

“The burst made the enemy cough a bit and indeed set the aircraft on fire,” he recalls. “We followed him down for several thousand feet and then he took a vertical dive, struck the ground and exploded with a shower of incendiaries.”

The Beaufighter accounted for two enemy aircraft that night: both of them Heinkel 111s.

During the course of the war, plenty of Terry’s own comrades lost their lives, but there was no real time to mourn them. It was a case of going down to the pub next day, if you were off duty, and raising a glass, Terry, now 91, says.

Terry, even though not a pilot himself, is officially one of The Few, the RAF heroes to whom so many owe so much: hence his place of honour in this book – first published in hardback in 2006 and now re-released in paperback.

By the end of the war, Terry had become a Flight Lieutenant, notched up six kills, and been awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal.

His story, and that of the others, makes for gripping reading.