"Flying Boats : My Father's War in the Mediterranean is an exciting and original blend of personal memoir and war history. Alex Frame's father was a flying boat pilot in war and afterwards in peace, and the roots of this book are the logbooks he kept over his 30 year career, the first covering early flights in 1938 and the war years, the second from 1950 to 1960 flying in Sydney and then Tahiti on the legendary Coral route around the Pacific Islands, and the third the final years flying in the Pacific from 1960 to 1969. This book concentrates on the years of World War II , and the star of the story is the Sunderland flying boat T9046, while under the command of Alex's father from November 1940 to June 1941. During this concentrated period of setbacks and disasters for the Commonwealth and British forces, the crews of the large, graceful flying boats were both saviours and victims in the struggle against Hitler's war machine." --Back cover.