adventure adventures adversity aerial-combat africa african-exploration african-safari air-force airplane airplanes alexandria ambition anecdotes army author autobiographical autobiography aviation aviator battle beloved-books biographical biography boarding-school bomber bomber-command bombers book-adaptation brave bravery britain british british-author british-culture british-empire british-history british-literature cairo captivating career childhood childhood-dreams childhood-experiences childhood-memoir childhood-memories childrens-literature classic classic-literature colonialism coming-of-age comradeship courage courageous creativity crete dahl danger danish daring desert determination dreams east-africa engineer england entertaining escapades escape escapism espionage excitement expedition exploration family famous-author fearlessness fighter-pilot fighter-pilots fighter-planes flying flying-ace flying-officer friendship friendships funny global-perspective going-solo greece growing-up growth heartwarming heroism historical history hitchhiking humor humorous humorous-anecdotes iconic imagination independence independent india inspiration journey kenya life-experiences life-lessons literary literature london loneliness longing loss love-for-aviation mediterranean memoir memories middle-east military military-service mischief mischievous missions mombasa non-fiction nonfiction norway norwegian norwegian-ancestry norwegian-campaign norwegian-heritage nostalgia novel novelist p-40-curtiss-tomahawk p-40-tomahawk palestine parents passion perseverance personal-growth pilot pilot-training piloting pilots planes raf raf-pilot raf-training relationships resilience risk 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 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