[Signed] [First Edition] The Waiting Year (Signed) Richard …, Atlanta

Frederick Richard Dimbleby (1913 1965) was an English journalist and broadcaster who became the BBC's first war correspondent and then its leading TV news commentator. He broadcast on radio only as television transmissions were closed down for the duration of the war. He accompanied the British Expeditionary Force to France and made broadcasts from the front. He later covered the battle of El Alamein and the Normandy beaches during the D-Day landings. During the Second World War, he flew on some twenty raids as an observer with RAF Bomber Command, including a sortie on 16 January 1943 to Berlin piloted by Guy Gibson. On the raids he recorded commentary for broadcast the following day. He was one of the first journalists to experiment with unconventional outside broadcasts, such as when flying in a de Havilland Mosquito accompanying a fighter aircraft raid on France, or being submerged in a diving suit. This novel is semi-autobiographical, as it follows a fictitious war correspondent who returns to England after covering the war in North Africa and then tours various bases throughout Britain during the year before D-day. The protagonist flies on RAF bombing missions and eventually joins the Normandy landings. This copy is near fine in beige buckram with red titles on the spine and front cover. Spine is slightly faded, but no other marks or damage. No DJ. Inscribed on the dedication page and dated 1944-45. Signed Dimbleby volumes are relatively scarce; this title in particular. CH22.