adventure adventures adversity aerial-combat africa african-safari air-force airplane airplanes alexandria anecdotes army author autobiographical autobiography aviation aviator battle biographical biography boarding-life boarding-school bomber-command bombers bombing book-adaptation brave bravery brazil britain british british-author british-culture british-empire british-literature british-society cairo childhood childhood-dreams childhood-experiences childhood-memoir childhood-memories childrens-literature classic classic-literature colonialism coming-of-age courage courageous creativity crete dahl danger daring desert determination dreams east-africa engineer england escapades escape escaping-danger escapism espionage excitement expedition exploration family famous-author famous-authors fearlessness fighter-pilot fighter-pilots fighter-planes flying flying-ace flying-officer friendship friendships funny global-perspective going-solo greece growing-up growth heroism historical history hitchhiking humor humorous humorous-anecdotes iconic imagination imperialism independence independent india inspiration journey kenya life-experiences life-lessons literary literature london loneliness longing loss love-for-aviation malaria mediterranean memoir memoirist memories middle-east military military-service mining mischief mischief-maker mischief-making mischievous missions mombasa non-fiction nonfiction norway norwegian norwegian-ancestry norwegian-heritage nostalgia novelist p-40-curtiss-tomahawk p-40-tomahawk palestine passion perseverance persistence personal-growth pilot pilot-training piloting pilots planes raf raf-hornchurch raf-pilot raf-training relationships resilience roald-dahl royal-air-force royal-navy safari scandinavian second-world-war self-discovery solo solo-flying solo-travel south-america spies spitfire spy spy-stories storytelling success sudan survival suspense syria tanganyika tanzania tragedy transformation travel triumph true-story unconventional united-kingdom victory war war-experience war-experiences war-memoir war-stories wartime wartime-experiences wit witty world-war-ii writer writing wwii young-adult youth youthful-antics