UK

041601 - LUCK IS MY SHADOW: The Story of a Fighter and Bomber Pilot during the Cold War

By Terry Adcock

As a young boy during the Second World War, the seeds were sown to fly in the blue sky. Terry Adcock made up his mind with a great determination to reach for the sky in a Supermarine Spitfire.

He joined the RAF but twists of fate caused him to become a nuclear bomber pilot. It was RAF policy not to shift from that complicated role to another and yet he pushed for change: he became an instructor, display pilot and made the final move to the single seat air defence Lightning. He eventually instructed on the Lightning and commanded two squadrons.

Adcock’s original dream came true but it was complicated in a way that he had not envisaged. There were dangerous incidents, the loss of friends, the thirty-one moves of his family and the politics associated with senior rank. At the outset, he had not understood the demands of a Cold War or the need to sail the major oceans of the world with a sea-going admiral.

The one compensation for his family was to live together on a tropical island for two years.