Flames over Norway — Robert Jackson

Pilot Officer Ken Armstrong is one of a small and select band of Spitfire pilots.

In the winter of early 1940, freezing in their cramped cockpits, the pilots set out to photograph German targets that will be attacked when the ‘Phoney War' gives way to a shooting war -- the heavy industries of the Ruhr Valley and, above all, warships of the German Navy, standing ready to break out into the Atlantic and prey on Britain's vital convoys.

Suddenly, in the early days of April 1940, an armada of German warships begins to move from the north German ports. Armstrong and his fellow pilots have the task of shadowing them, and soon establish that the invasion of Norway is beginning.

Shot down during a photo-recce sortie over Norway, Armstrong finds himself fighting with Allied ground forces before reaching an RAF fighter squadron operating from a frozen lake in the far north.

He is soon involved in an amazing intrigue with Norwegian government officials, desperate to salvage Norway's remaining gold reserves and fly them to England.

Finding an aircraft capable of doing the job is a problem -- which Armstrong and his new friends set about solving. The obvious answer is to steal one from under the noses of the conquering Germans …

Robert Jackson (b. 1941) is a prolific author of military and aviation history, having become a full time writer in 1969. As an active serviceman in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve he flew a wide range of aircraft, ranging from jets to gliders.