adventure adventures adversity aerial-combat africa africa-safari african-exploration african-safari air-force airplane airplanes alexandria ambition anecdotes army author auto-biography autobiographical autobiography aviation aviator beloved-books biographical biography boarding-house boarding-life boarding-school bomber-command bombers bravery britain british british-author british-culture british-empire british-history british-literature bullying captivating career childhood childhood-dreams childhood-experiences childhood-memories childhoood childrens-literature classic colonialism coming-of-age comradeship courage courageous creativity crete dahl danger danish daring denmark desert determination dreams east-africa enemy engineer england entertaining escapades escape escapism excitement expedition exploration family fighter-pilot fighter-planes flying flying-ace flying-officer friendship friendships funny going-solo greece growing-up growth heartwarming heroism historical history hitchhiking humor humorous imagination independence independent india inspiration journey kenya life-changing life-experiences life-lessons literary literature london loneliness longing mediterranean memoir memories middle-east migration military military-service mischief mischievous mombasa non-fiction nonfiction norway norwegian norwegian-ancestry norwegian-campaign norwegian-heritage nostalgia novel p-40-tomahawk p.o.w. parachute parents passion perseverance personal-growth pilot pilot-training piloting pilots planes raf raf-hornchurch raf-museum raf-pilot raf-squadron raf-training resilience risk roald-dahl royal-air-force royal-navy safari scandinavian second-world-war self-discovery shell-oil solo solo-flying solo-travel south-america spies spitfire spy storytelling success sudan survival syria tanganyika tanzania to1980 tragedy transformation travel triumph true-story unconventional unique united-kingdom victory war war-experience war-experiences war-memoir war-stories wartime wartime-experience wartime-experiences wartime-pilot wild-imagination wit witty world-war-ii writer writing wwii young-adult young-readers youth youthful-antics