AFTER flying Spitfires in the Battle of Britain, being shot down by the Germans and becoming a prisoner of war, veteran Peter Olver has a lot of stories to tell.

The 89-year-old, of Nettleton, near Chippenham, was one of Churchill's Few', the pilots and aircrew who bravely fought off the Germans in the skies above Britain at the beginning of the Second World War.

He is now one of five former RAF men whose stories are told in a new book Five of the Few, by military author Steve Darlow and Mr Olver said he was pleased to be able to share his past.

He joined the RAF as a volunteer reservist and after only eight hours flying a Spitfire in an operational training unit, he found himself fighting in one of the famous planes against the Germans above the east of England in 1940.

"There was a hell of a lot of aeroplanes and it was our job to get rid of the German planes," he told the Chippenham News.

"They flew in a defensive circle and would fly up from underneath.

"I thought I was pretty good and got good reports on my flying but I got all my experience at once when I was shot down on the first day flying with the squadron.

"They shot the starboard wing and I had a job to get out. I had to use all my strength and it was spinning around. before I parachuted out It fell like a lump of metal, which is what it became when it stopped flying."

After being picked up by the army he was back in the skies the next day. He was later transferred to Edinburgh but wanted to return to the action and after a brief spell in Exeter and Devon he was posted to the Middle East.

"We had to cope with sandstorms where you couldn't see anything," he said.

"You never forgot about safety but you didn't worry about it. Some people were very frightened but I wasn't. I was just cross if I couldn't get the Germans.

"Lots of my friends died but you couldn't afford to think about it because you knew you could be the next one."

During the two years he fought in the Middle East, he saw the Germans retreat as the Allies advanced but in 1943 he was hit and fell among the enemy in Sicily.

"I landed on the edge of a precipice and someone was shooting at me," he said.

"I took off fairly smartly but I got no distance because I was injured. The Germans were fairly objectionable but some of them were all right and could speak good English."

For the next 22 months, Mr Olver was a Prisoner of War and for some time was incarcerated in Stalag Luft III, in Sagan, Germany, the camp famous for escapes like those featured in the films The Wooden Horse and The Great Escape.

When he was released at the end of the war, Mr Olver, who had achieved the rank of Wing Commander, returned to Britain and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

He then left the RAF and met his wife Daphne and the couple left Britain to live in Kenya before returning in 1963. They have four sons and 11 grandchildren.

Five of the Few is available in hardback for £20.