LANDAU, Rom. The Wing: Confessions of an R.A.F. Officer. London: Faber and Faber, 1945.
A superb presentation copy from Rom Landau to Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal, from Portal’s personal collection, inscribed on the front free endpaper: “To Air Chief Marshal / Sir Charles Portal / with the author’s compliments / Rom Landau / 6.4.45.” The connection between author and recipient is both professional and textual. Landau served in the RAF during the war, acting as a liaison officer with the Polish Air Force in Britain, and The Wing is his autobiographical account of service life. Portal, as Chief of the Air Staff, was the senior professional head of the RAF and the figure ultimately responsible for the service within which Landau worked. The association is sharpened by the fact that Portal appears in the book itself, in the “Polish Adventure” section, where Landau records preparations for a visit by Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal to a Polish training station.
First edition. Octavo, original cloth, in the striking original Faber dust jacket, priced 16s. net to the front flap. The jacket is a major feature of this copy: bold, atmospheric and unusually well preserved, with the white wing design standing sharply against the deep blue and shadowed ground. There is some rubbing, creasing, small chips and edge wear, especially at the head of the spine and corners, but the jacket remains bright, substantially complete and highly attractive.
The book is described on the jacket as a “private R.A.F. log book”, distilled from some 45,000 words written at night after the day’s work. It ranges from training and RAF bureaucracy to fighter stations, Polish airmen, air-gunners, moral reflection and wartime service life, ending with “Meditations on Loch Ness.” Contents toned, as usual with wartime paper, but clean and firm. A strong RAF association copy, written from inside the service, inscribed to its wartime chief, and textually connected to Portal himself.
