Best Foot Forward: The Autobiography of Colin Hodgkinson.

Publisher: Oldhams Books Limited, London, 1957, First edition. Good hardback, fading to spine, name to ffep, pages very good. Price clipped jacket, lightly rubbed with some light marks. Loss to top of spine. 255 pages with photo.

In the whole of the Second World War, only two men succeeded as operational fighter pilots in the RAF after losing both legs. Douglas Bader was one, and his story is well-known indeed, he has been described as one of the Royal Air Forces most famous pilots. The other was Colin Hodgkinson. Colin was injured in a flying accident whilst training with the Fleet Air Arm in 1939. He awoke in hospital to find that his right leg had been amputated at the thigh, whilst his left leg was severely injured. His face was also damaged and he had trouble with the sight in one eye. In the weeks that followed, Colin's remaining leg refused to heal. Coolly, calculatingly, he made his decision: Chop the damned thing off and let's be done with it. Just nineteen at the time, Colin developed a burning determination to prove himself a normal man by becoming a fighter pilot and flying Spitfires. With Douglas Bader as his example, and brilliant surgeons such as Sir Archibald McIndoe treating him, Colin achieved his aim with a hand-tailored pair of tin legs.

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