Spitfire over Everest

This is an outstanding story of coincidence, quick wit, skill,routine,
improvisation and seized opportunity as a young RAF pilot flies an iconic
Spitfire in an aerial photographic mission over Everest at the end of World
War Two.

RAF Pilot Officer Neame trained to fly Spitfires for photographic
reconnaissance and, after a short time in Germany, was sent to pre-partition
India in 1946 to serve in the only photo-reconnaissance squadron in the whole
sub-continent.

Getting lost and reaching home with just enough fuel for another seven and a
half minutes? Flying blind with an unserviceable radio through a monsoon
storm?

Making an unauthorised sortie into another country to come home with
outstanding pictures of the world’s greatest mountains – taken one-handed with
the Leica jammed against the hood while the other hand grasped the stick and
kept the Spitfire level!

With a foreword by Sir Martin Holdgate. Cover image by the author on his
photo-reconnaissance flight in 1946: Mt. Everest from the North with part of
the Spitfire’s wing in the lower right corner.