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During the summer months of the Battle of Britain it was commonplace for the Spitfire and Hurricane pilots to have completed at least one combat sortie before most of the population had risen from their beds, more than one pilot experiencing the indignity of being shot down, baling out, and being returned to his squadron in time for breakfast.
The pilots of RAF's Number 92 Squadron had a history of dawn patrols going all the way back to the Somme, when their Sopwith Pups, Spads, and SE5a's contested the sky above the trenches at daybreak. Two decades later, in their first encounter over northern France flying Spitfire Mk Is, the pilots of 92 Squadron brought down six Messerschmitt Me109s in combat at sun-up, and during the height of the Battle of Britain in September 1940, the squadron's pilots flew continually against the huge Luftwaffe formations raiding south-east England from first light to dusk.
In Gerald Coulson's fine study First Light, Mk Vb Spitfires of 92 Squadron climb out of Biggin Hill at the outset of an early morning patrol on a cold winter's morning in February 1941. Leaving the mist behind as the first beams of light streak across the heavens, they will turn to the east and steel themselves to meet the enemy, high in the dawn sky
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