First Light

Product Information

After the war, Wellum stayed with the RAF, serving first as a staff officer in the Second Tactical Air Force in West Germany, where he flew jet aircraft such as the Gloster Meteor, the de Havilland Vampire and the English Electric Canberra. He was also stationed at RAF Gaydon, and in East Anglia. [3] This was followed by a four-year tour with 192 Squadron. The family settled in Epping, Essex. [3] Then we had to work out how to create a full-blooded dogfight, and a nightmare flight in torrential rain over the channel - during which Boy shoots down a German bomber. These scenes were whole other cans of worms...

First Light on Vimeo First Light on Vimeo

Life for Wellum at the end of his career as a fighter pilot was never be quite the same. "I am certain that my time came with my three years as an operational fighter pilot in our nation's finest hour. My only regret is that it had to happen so early in life". [12] Dates The story was told well. You saw what little training the RAF had. You saw their raw courage. You felt their tension and watched them deal with the losses of each of their own the best they could. You saw them fly exhausted into battle over and over and over again. You saw what it cost them mentally and emotionally. If England had fallen to Germany, the country could not have been used as the launching point for the D-Day landings and the liberation of Europe. Meantime, our real Spit took off with the pilot delivering Boy Wellum's point of view (by way of a specially designed camera mounting on his flying helmet). Soon after his arrival, 92 Squadron moved from Duxford in Cambridgeshire to Pembrey in Carmarthenshire. There, Wellum made his first sorties, pursuing a Junkers Ju 88 German bomber as far as Weymouth, Dorset, and losing it in the clouds; attempting night-fighting around Bristol; and “chasing isolated German aircraft all over the south-west”. But all of this was a prelude to the squadron’s move, on 9 September 1940, to Biggin Hill in Kent, at the centre of that summer’s battle.As Wellum starts to fly on operations there is a definite change in the tone of his writing. His recollections of time on the ground with his fellow pilots are still lighthearted and amusing, but this is in stark contrast to time spent in the air fighting over Southern England and later over Northern France. His descriptions of aerial combat are vivid and gripping, written with an immediacy that is terrifying. Tragedy strikes again and again as a steady stream of his friends are killed and badly wounded, and the pressure on these pilots to keep flying is relentless. No wonder that after 2 years of operational flying he is completely worn out, and he and the reader can finally pause for breath.

First Light by Geoffrey Wellum | Waterstones

Geoff watched these scenes with great interest and said that he felt the film perfectly caught the mood and emotions he felt at the time, both on the ground and in the air. He retired from the RAF in 1961 to take up a position with a firm of commodity brokers in the City of London until his retirement to Cornwall where he still lived when ‘First Light’ was published in 2002.By late September the Battle of Britain was over, and the blitz, the night-time onslaught on the country’s urban centres, was under way. For Wellum and his comrades the intensity eased, as Spitfires were unsatisfactory nightfighters, and the squadron moved into winter quarters at Manston in Kent. During the battle he had shot down a Heinkel He 111 bomber, and claimed a quarter share in a Ju 88. That November there were two damaged Bf 109s, and one shared. Another Bf 109 was claimed in 1941, and there may have been more, as he was not one greatly concerned with recording such things.

First Light by Geoffrey Wellum | Goodreads

This is a fabulous, engrossing book that tells the story of a young Spitfire pilot during World War Two. We follow Geoff Wellum through his application process, through a long and arduous training course and right the way through the war (although, understandably, Wellum places a lot of emphasis on the Battle of Britain). Wellum claimed a Heinkel He 111 shot down on 11 September, and a quarter share in a Junkers Ju 88 downed on 27 September 1940. Two (and one shared) Messerschmitt Bf 109s were claimed "damaged" during November 1940. [9] 1941 [ edit ] To mark the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, the BBC commissioned a one-off drama for TV called First Light, based on Wellum's book of the same name. The film was first shown by the BBC on 14 September 2010 starring Sam Heughan. [20]

No other account of flying in the Battle of Britain has been articulated as well as Geoffrey's in First Light Gillian Crawley, Daily Express Although there is an aching sense that Wellum himself is unsure of the answer, to the reader there is no doubt: that we live to read what you have written is testament to your life and its worth. Wellum left the Royal Air Force in 1961, [and went to work] with a firm of commodity brokers in the City of London, set up his own business, and then retired to Mullion, Cornwall." The conversations started early about getting Spitfires airborne. But what is it they say? Never work with animals, children... or vintage aircraft! And, I guess, is just about as close as any of us would want to get to the nerve-jangling terrors of air combat, Battle of Britain style.