Piece of Cake

This is one of my favourite books ever, perhaps rivalled only by Robinson's other masterpiece, "Goshawk Squadron", both of which I have read and re-read again and again over the years. The writing is simple, subtle and brilliant, the dialogue sparking and witty, the atmosphere vivid. Was this what life in the RAF was really like at the start of the Second World War? The author's unemotional writing carries with it a gritty and entirely convincing sense of reality; you cannot help think that this is really how it was. From the opening sentence to the final full stop, Robinson delivers a tense and entertaining story whose characters spring to life from the pages. If many of his personae are necessarily only lightly sketched and interchangeable, others are multi-dimensional portraits that remind me forcefully of the kind of people I went to school with or suffered under as a pupil. (I served my time in a British Public School. By the 1960s we were living in 1890). We meet Ramsey, headstrong and impatient, but he is in such a hurry that we have little time to get to know him. Fanny Barton, an athletic but uncertain New Zealander suffers from social insecurity and a nervous introspection that drives him to hasty and poorly considered decisions. Lord Rex is confident and breezy, but his aristocratic charm disguises an unpleasant ruthless arrogance, and sometimes callous cruelty. Despite his experience as a pilot in the First World War, the much older adjutant Kellaway comes from an earlier epoch, and ideas of gallantry are not completely erased. Skull Skelton, the intelligence officer, by contrast, sees the folly of war for what it is - and gains few friends from his outspoken views. Moggy Cattermole is thoroughly unlikeable from the beginning. When we meet him he has just stolen a giant gollywog from someone by punching him in the eye. As the story progresses his unusually ugly character is slowly revealed to the reader. By contrast, Chris Hart III is an upright, cynical, war-weary American, viewed by some as an unwelcome colonial intrusion into a thoroughly British war. On the ground, Robinson evokes the colours and scents of wartime France and England, and mercilessly - but without fuss - shows us the muddle, misconceptions and incompetence of the administrative machinery of 1939 and 1940. He lets the reader see the unthinking class snobbery of the young pilots, making us reassess these otherwise often likeable individuals and realise that by upbringing they must in many cases have been blinkered and insufferable, arrogant self-anointed masters of the universe. But you cannot dislike these pilots. They live intensely and with gusto, and the reader is swept up into their funny, unscrupulous, devil-take-the-hindmost world where a quick turn of phrase and disregard for personal safety are badges of honour. By the outbreak of the air war in 1940 the Spanish Civil War had convincingly demonstrated that large formations of figh

Piece of Cake is much more than just a very well written war novel - which it is. In Piece of Cake, aviation author Derek Robinson uses the small group genre by focuses on the notional "Hornet squadron" as a means to bring to light many of the Royal Air Force's doctrinal, equipment and personnel deficiencies in the first year of the Second War. Piece of Cake is also a darn good examination of character and leadership - or lack of - in warfare. Typically, "the few" who flew for Britain in 1939-1941 are presented as an exemplary elite, who sacrificed themselves for the greater good. In Piece of Cake, Robinson may have angered those who favored such a hallowed historiography, but he gives the reader a greater insight into what was probably much closer to the actual mark in Fighter Command in this early phase of the war. Indeed, it would be fair to rank Piece of Cake among the best war novels ever written. Robinson's plot line follows the notional Hornet Squadron from 1 September 1939 to 15 September 1940, and the unit is equipped with Hurricane I and II fighters (not Spitfires, as in the film version). The reader is presented with three different leadership styles in the squadron leaders: the self-destructive style of Ramsey, the arrogant style of Rex and the fatalistic style of "Fanny" Barton. The squadron adjutant "Uncle" Kellaway and the intelligence officer "Skull" Skelton also add considerable depth on the human and scientific sides of warfare. The pilots themselves are a pretty stock bunch, as they are in most Robinson novels, with the exceptions of the sociopath "Moggy" Cattermole and the American, Chris Hart. Indeed, one of the major differences between the book and the film is the relationship between "Moggy" and Squadron Leader Rex, which is never explained in the film. In the book, Robinson paints "Moggy" in the role of the "squadron enforcer," who is fiercely loyal to Rex due to perks provided. Indeed, "Moggy" even kills to protect Rex, which is odd for a character that displays no loyalty to anyone else in the squadron. Robinson's portrayal of the RAF's inadequate tactics and doctrine is quite interesting. In particular, the large formation "fighting area attacks" put the RAF at a major disadvantage against the Luftwaffe's more fluid "finger four" tactics. Indeed, through A Piece of Cake, the reader is presented with a year's worth of tactical and doctrinal evolution in the RAF, with the initial faulty methods yielding grudgingly to more sensible means of waging air warfare. Robinson also seems to include every fighter pilot "lesson learned" in A Piece of Cake, which makes the novel virtually a primer for dog fighting (e.g. never climb away from the sun, don't always break left - the favored direction). Yet despite Hornet Squadron's tactical improvements, Robinson shows that survival in warfare still comes down to a certain matter of luck, as even the veteran pilots succumb to mistakes and fatigue. Few other accounts

I rank this as one of the best books I've ever read and am very surprised more people aren't aware of it. The writing is top-notch: Robinson was at the top of his game when he wrote "Piece of Cake." The characters come to life, even if many of them don't stay alive very long. It is laugh-out-loud funny at times, slyly humorous at others, brutal, honest and thought-provoking -- often on one page. One must remember that Britain's "Knights of the Sky" averaged bout 19 years of age when The Battle was raging. They often behaved in a less-than-honorable fashion, as most 19 years usually do. Finally, anyone who ever entertained the notion that the air war was a "clean" way to fight will quickly have that notion dispelled. Dying in a burning Hurricane, taking cannon fire in the gut or waiting for the cold sea to steal all the warmth from your body are just a few of the ways an RAF pilot could die in the autumn of 1940. In spite of the controversy it generated, this book is a great tribute to the RAF's Few and a fine work of literature.

A fast moving account of life and death in a WWII RAF Fighter Squadron. The author puts you in the cockpit with the characters. Great look at English euphemisms and life style. One of the better WW II novels with historic reference.