Taking London

Winston Churchill and the Fight to Save Civilization

By: Martin Dugard

Narrated by: Samuel Roukin

Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins

Publisher's summary

From Martin Dugard, #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of Bill O'Reilly's Killing series—with more than 12 million copies sold—comes a soaring account of England's desperate fight to fend off German invasion.

Great Britain, summer 1940. The Battle of France is over. The Battle of Britain is about to begin. Adolf Hitler’s powerful armies control Europe. England stands alone against this juggernaut, the whole world knowing it is only a matter of time before Nazi Germany unleashes its military might on the island nation. And in London, a new prime minister named Winston Churchill is determined to defeat the Nazi menace, no matter the costs.

Luckily for Churchill, one quirky Englishman has seen the future. Air Vice-Marshall Hugh Dowding is head of the Royal Air Force Fighter Command. He has spent years preparing his nation's aerial defenses, utilizing the new technology of radar, training hundreds of hand-picked young pilots, and overseeing the design and purchase of the world's most up-to-date fighter aircraft. In time, the names "Spitfire" and "Hurricane" will become iconic, these airplanes synonymous with a David versus Goliath struggle between the RAF and German Luftwaffe. For the first time in history, the battlefield will not be on land or in water but entirely contested in the skies above. Nazi victory depends upon their overwhelming air power, and the fate of not just the British people but all of Western Civilization hinges on a small group of elite pilots stopping this onslaught—a band of brothers who will go down in history as the Few.

Taking London puts the listener inside the action, bringing to life the personal sagas of Churchill, Dowding, and legendary fighter pilots like Peter Townsend, Geoffrey Wellum, Richard Hillary, and American Billy Fiske, all set against the defiant backdrop of wartime London. Told in fast-paced, you-are-there fashion, this third book in the epic Taking series is an indelible portrait of the moment the tide of WWII was turned, and the incredible heroes who made it happen.

©2024 Martin Dugard (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"Dugard’s achievement is to give a vivid sense of what it was like to fight, even die, in a fighter plane in 1940… Dugard’s accounts of the Battle of Britain, on the ground – the bases, the pubs near the bases, the hospitals – and in the air are transfixing.” —The Cipher Brief

“Taking London…highlights the bravery and heroics of the RAF fighter pilots, the British air marshals, the aircraft designer of the Spitfire, and, of course, Winston Churchill, Britain’s wartime leader who, in John Lukacs’ words, saved Western civilization… Dugard writes crisply, with short sentences and vivid descriptions of people and places.” —New York Journal of Books

"Colorful, delightfully evocative, and filled with a cast of some of the greatest characters of the 20th century, Martin Dugard's new book is the closest you can get to London in 1940 without a time machine." —Garrett M. Graff, New York Times Bestselling author of The Only Plane in the Sky and UFO

Great story

Having been born in Washington DC in January 1939 the war, World War II was a very important part of my young life. This is a great story.

Boring

Fell asleep a lot! Long book that put me asleep ! I Will try ti listen again soon