Book summary “Going Solo”: summary

Introduction

You often find yourself trapped in predictable routines when working far from home in foreign lands. The comfortable monotony of colonial life lulls you into a false sense of security until massive historical events shatter your isolation. When global conflict erupts around you, the sudden necessity to defend your country forces you to abandon peaceful pursuits. You face the daunting challenge of transitioning from a civilian clerk into a military pilot trained for modern aerial warfare.

Roald Dahl presents the central idea in Going Solo that true character emerges when you leave behind the safety of structured environments to face extreme physical danger. You learn to navigate intense operational pressures, severe injuries, and devastating military retreats without losing your capacity for humor and observation. The narrative demonstrates how ordinary individuals endure extraordinary hardships across remote African outposts and volatile Middle Eastern battlefields.

The book traces your journey from peaceful British East Africa through the outbreak of World War II and into the cockpit of a fighter plane. You move through rigorous flight training regimes across desert landscapes, combat missions over Greece, and harrowing medical recoveries.

• How do expatriates survive psychological isolation in harsh colonial climates?
• What daily dangers do tropical wildlife and regional conflicts present to civilians?
• Why do sudden military orders force immediate internment of foreign nationals?
• How does basic flight training prepare pilots for deadly aerial combat?
• What happens when a pilot crashes behind enemy lines with severe injuries?
• How do outnumbered air forces manage evacuation during catastrophic military retreats?

1. Life in the British Empire

Living for years in sweaty foreign climates causes expatriates to go slightly dotty. You witness strange rituals that would never be tolerated back home. Britons working in distant colonial outposts cultivate bizarre habits and eccentric behaviors to maintain their sanity in harsh climates.

Colonial Eccentricities

Empire-builders often developed a maggot in the brain after decades abroad. Memsahibs and managers invented peculiar daily rules:

• Major Griffiths spent 36 years in India;
• Major Griffiths and his wife ran naked around the deck of the SS Mantola every morning;
• Miss Trefusis employed 50 boys on her coffee farm;
• Miss Trefusis refused to touch any food with her fingers and ate oranges entirely with a knife and fork.

U.N. Savory wore wigs and faked dandruff to conceal his baldness. He believed that Sikh wallahs would not respect a bald man.

U.N. Savory sprinkled Epsom salts on his dinner jacket shoulders to fake dandruff. He secretly carried four different wigs of varying hair lengths in a black leather case.

Life in East Africa

Working for the Shell Company in East Africa involved managing remote territories. You relied on native servants and learned local languages.

Young employees lived comfortably in company houses supported by domestic staff. You traveled across difficult terrain on safari to supply fuel and lubricating oil to industrial customers.

Roald Dahl worked as the junior of three young Englishmen running the Shell Company in Tanganyika. You employed personal staff and drove through rough territory:

• an mpishi cooked meals;
• a shamba-boy maintained the grounds;
• a personal boy named Mdisho managed daily needs;
• a station-wagon carried you across rough dirt roads;
• a 100 pounds bonus was given for passing the Swahili exam;
• a case of whisky cost 12 pounds.

Sundowner drinks marked the end of difficult days in the heat. You adapted to isolation by embracing the routines of the region.

2. African Wildlife and Dangers

Local native workers and expatriates navigate deadly wildlife threats, tropical diseases, and sudden lethal encounters across remote African territories.

You face constant hazards from venomous snakes and unpredictable predators when living in colonial Tanganyika. Local native workers possess deep knowledge of dangerous wildlife and remarkable bravery when confronting deadly threats. Black mambas are aggressive snakes whose bites are fatal, yet trained staff can sometimes neutralize them by standing completely still and striking precisely at the last moment.

Salimu the shamba-boy stood motionless as a 6 feet long mamba snake glided toward him, then struck it with a metal rake to break its back and save his own life. Salimu struck the snake from a 5 feet distance.

British District Officers in remote African outposts act as judges, medical providers, and administrators over vast territories with complete autonomy. These officials enjoy immense personal freedom to manage their districts but often miss the company of intellectual peers.

Robert Sanford administered 2,000 square miles of territory from Tabora while listening to classical music on a gramophone.

Wild animals in Africa sometimes exhibit bizarre and inexplicable behavior that baffles local experts and hunters. Lions rarely attack humans when game is plentiful, and an attack does not always follow predictable aggressive patterns.

A lion carried the cook's wife away in its jaws like a cub without biting through her clothes, dropping her unharmed when pursued. Roald Dahl received a 5 pounds cheque for his first published newspaper article about the incident.

Professional snake handlers in Tanganyika capture venomous snakes safely without encouraging locals to hunt them. Donald Macfarlane removed a green mamba from Fuller's living room after the snake killed the family dog, using a long forked pole and leather gauntlets.

• Macfarlane used an eight-foot-long wooden pole used to catch the snake;
• Macfarlane was over seventy years old, the estimated age of Donald Macfarlane;
• Macfarlane strictly refused to buy snakes from locals to prevent them from getting bitten and dying.

Severe malaria in colonial Tanganyika requires aggressive medical intervention. You suffer from severe malaria with temperatures reaching 105 degrees, treated by injecting a new drug called Atebrin into one side of your bottom and a heavy dose of quinine into the other side.

Dahl described writing to his mother from bed while suffering from fevers of 103°, 104°, and 105° fever temperatures over successive days, and enduring painful injections including 15 or 20 grams of quinine given as an injection.

3. Outbreak of World War II

The declaration of war triggers the immediate mobilization of British civilian expatriates to intern German nationals and secure colonial borders.

Mobilization

World War II begins officially at 1.15 p.m. on Sunday when war was declared in Tanganyika. Young British workers are immediately commissioned as temporary army officers. You receive orders to command native platoons and block escape routes.

Your task is rounding up German residents attempting to flee to neutral territory. You are placed in command of an askari platoon of the King's African Rifles (KAR) with a machine-gun. Your specific assignment is blocking the south coast road leading to Portuguese East Africa. You face an estimated 500 men, the estimated number defeatable by one machine-gun.

Enforcing Internment

Colonial authorities enforce internment orders by blocking escape routes with native troops and warning shots. You use warning shots from a machine-gun and rifles over the heads of escaping German civilians to halt their convoy.

You confront fifty odd cars lined up in the convoy. Seventy Germans are standing in a half-circle when the confrontation reaches its peak.

When a German leader named Fritz Kleiber threatens you with a Luger pistol, an askari shoots and kills him from the jungle.

4. Mdisho and Local Allies

Tribal warriors integrate traditional concepts of warfare into colonial conflicts, creating intense moral dilemmas for their British employers.

Traditional Warfare

Tribal warriors integrated into colonial households maintained traditional concepts of warfare independent of European legal constraints. Dahl's houseboy Mdisho, belonging to the martial Mwanumwezi tribe, took his master's valuable Arab sword and independently attacked a local German sisal-planter upon hearing that war had begun.

Mdisho walked four hours each way to the plantation of Fritz Kleiber, decapitated him with the antique Arab sword, and brought back the news as a triumph.

The episode involved specific local elements:

• 500 shillings paid for the Arab sword;
• four hours each way for Mdisho's journey;
• the martial Mwanumwezi tribe;
• a heavy sjambok carried by colonial masters.

Departure from Tanganyika

Realizing the police would charge Mdisho with murder, you conceal the crime, accept the equality of their actions, and gift him the sword as a reward for bravery before leaving to join the air force.

Dahl told Mdisho to clean the blood off the sword, keep it a secret, and accepted the weapon as a going-away present when leaving for flight training.

The final arrangements spanned a brief window:

• thirty-six hours spanning the events;
• six months required to learn how to fly;
• the ultimate departure in search of a ndegi.

5. Flight Training in Africa and the Desert

Enlisting in the RAF involves rigorous training across Nairobi and harsh desert bases while facing catastrophic attrition rates among fellow trainees.

Early RAF Service

When you decide to enlist to fight against Hitler, your employers might support you. The Shell Company released Dahl in November 1939, when the war was two months old, and magnanimously promised to continue paying his salary into his bank for as long as the war lasted and he remained alive.

Dahl left his job at the Shell Company in Dar es Salaam and drove his Ford Prefect 600 miles to Nairobi to enlist in the RAF. You joined young men who had come from England to work for commercial concerns like Barclays Bank and Imperial Tobacco.

Flight Training

Out of sixteen trainees who spent six months training closely together as a Leading Aircraftman at the Initial Training School in Nairobi, thirteen were killed in the air within the next two years.

You learned to fly on Tiger Moths with instructors borrowed from Wilson Airways. The Tiger Moth biplane was celebrated by pilots for its supreme safety and aerobatic capabilities, powered by a reliable Gypsy engine that never failed in mid-air. It had no vices, could be easily spun, looped, and recovered, and tolerated heavy landings from beginners.

Dahl went solo after 7 hours and 40 minutes of flight time, working with three instructors and three planes at the aerodrome.

Advanced Training

Advanced flying training took place in extremely harsh desert conditions testing pilot endurance. You spent six months at Habbaniya completing advanced training 100 miles north of Baghdad, dealing with extreme heat, floods, scorpions, and prickly heat.

Dahl and his fellow trainees flew Hawker Harts with Rolls-Royce Merlin engines in a massive desert base where shade temperatures reached 115°F. You practiced firing machine guns at a canvas drogue pulled by another aircraft.

6. The Crash in the Western Desert

Logistical errors and incorrect navigational directions lead to severe pilot crashes behind enemy lines and miraculous escapes from burning wreckage.

Operational Flying

You transitioned to operational aircraft after completing advanced training. A flight-lieutenant at Ismailia told you to fly a Gloster Gladiator out to your squadron without any prior instruction on the specific aircraft type.

Fighter biplanes used an unfamiliar mechanical mechanism to fire machine-guns through a spinning propeller. The Gloster Gladiator used two fixed machine-guns that fired bullets through a revolving propeller via a pulse system connected by an oil pipe, a mechanism Dahl found magical. You managed a radial engine and learned to use a reflector-sight for targeting.

The Crash

Faulty maps and incorrect instructions created immense hazards for pilots flying across remote territories. Due to wrong coordinates provided by a commanding officer, a pilot flew into no-man's-land instead of an active squadron strip, ran out of fuel, and crashed into a boulder.

On September 19, 1940, Dahl crashed his Gladiator in the Western Desert, suffered a fractured skull and a bashed-in nose, and narrowly escaped his burning aircraft before ammunition exploded.

The accident involved specific terrifying moments:

• striking the earth at a crash speed of seventy-five miles an hour;
• facing imminent danger as over 1,000 rounds of ammunition exploding inside the fire;
• dragging your blinded, bleeding body away from the burning wreckage before rescue.

7. Hospital Recovery and Transfer to Greece

Severely injured pilots recovered in specialized medical facilities while undergoing experimental treatments and plastic surgery. You faced long periods of immobility and complex facial reconstructions performed by Harley Street specialists.

Severely injured pilots recovered in specialized medical facilities while undergoing experimental treatments and plastic surgery.

At the Anglo-Swiss hospital in Alexandria, staffed by naval officers, patients received early anesthetics like sodium pentathol.

You spent five months in hospital total, including four months before being allowed out of bed. Four weeks of convalescence with the Peel family followed your discharge from care.

Dahl spent five months recovering from blindness and severe head injuries, treated by surgeons who rebuilt his nose and a nurse named Mary Welland whose voice he fell in love with.

Transfer to Greece

Pilots transitioning to modern monoplanes faced tight cockpit constraints and long non-stop overseas flights. You had to fly modern fighters equipped with retractable undercarriages, variable pitch propellers, and multiple wing guns across the sea to active war zones with minimal transition time.

Transfer to Greece

Pilots transitioning to modern monoplanes faced tight cockpit constraints and long non-stop overseas flights. You had to fly modern fighters equipped with retractable undercarriages, variable pitch propellers, and multiple wing guns across the sea to active war zones with minimal transition time. Dahl flew a Hawker Hurricane non-stop from Egypt to Greece for four hours and forty minutes. You suffered severe leg cramp due to your height in the cramped cockpit.

The aircraft featured several major technical capabilities:

• eight machine-guns in its wings;
• a retractable undercarriage;
• a variable pitch propeller.

You landed at Elevsis aerodrome after four hours and forty minutes flight time to Greece, standing six feet six inches tall inside the tight space.

8. Air Combat in Greece

A drastically outnumbered British air force defends Greek territory against overwhelming German formations using primitive reporting networks.

Military Situation in Greece

The entire RAF presence in Greece consisted of only 15 Hurricanes and 4 older Blenheim bombers. German forces massed an estimated 1000 fighters and bombers just across the mountains. When you arrived at Elevsis, a corporal explained the desperate imbalance. You faced ground-strafed facilities and complete operational isolation.

The defense relied on minimal resources:

• 15 Hurricanes as the entire fighter strength;
• 4 Blenheims as the total bomber fleet;
• 1000 German planes positioned against you.

Tactics and Combat Conditions

Lacking modern electronic radar, the squadron relied entirely on a rudimentary network of human spotters. Greek peasants stationed on mountaintops acted as lookouts. They called the Ops Room via field telephones to report incoming enemy aircraft. David Coke explained that Greek observers served as your radar. Many could not distinguish between enemy planes in the sky.

Dahl achieved his first aerial victory against a German bomber despite having minimal prior combat experience. You cruised at an altitude of 5000 feet above the airfield before spotting enemy formations 40 miles away. British air patrols were tasked with protecting a heavily loaded ammunition ship in Khalkis from continuous bombing. The cargo vessel contained high explosives for the Greek forces, making it a primary target for German dive-bombers trying to trigger a massive explosion.

Dahl encountered a Ju 88 diving toward the ammunition ship at 6.15 in the morning. You pursued six Ju 88 bombers near Khalkis, aimed for the engine of the rearmost plane, and successfully hit it, forcing the crew to bail out.

9. The Battle of Athens

Fighter pilots used extremely low-altitude flight to evade superior numbers of enemy Messerschmitts. Flying below rooftop level over trees and obstacles forced enemy pursuers to take severe risks or abandon the chase due to the intense concentration required.

The depleted squadron maintained an unsustainable operational tempo as German forces closed in on Athens.

Pilots flew multiple sorties daily, scrambling to intercept bombers over Piraeus, Lamia, and Athens while ground crews performed miracles patching riddled aircraft. To escape thirty or forty Me 109s, Dahl dove down and skimmed just feet above the ground. You leaped over olive trees and stone walls at speeds reaching 300 miles per hour at an approximate height of 20 feet.

Dahl's logbook records 12 separate sorties over a four-day span from April 17 to April 20. This led to heavy attrition among pilots until only 7 half-serviceable Hurricanes remained by the end of the period.

The Battle of Athens

The entire remaining force of 12 Hurricanes was committed to a morale-boosting formation flight over Athens that triggered a massive aerial battle. Led by top ace Pat Pattle, the small formation was swarmed by roughly 200 German fighters. This resulted in a chaotic dogfight over the city.

On April 20, all 12 pilots flew over Athens and broke formation upon encountering overwhelming enemy numbers. They engaged in a fierce 30-minute dogfight that cost 5 British Hurricanes.

The Psychological Toll of War

Intense combat stress caused severe physical exhaustion and nervous tremors among surviving pilots. Extreme physical exertion inside hot cockpits caused pilots to soak their flight gear in sweat. Adrenaline withdrawal left them with uncontrollable hand tremors.

After landing from the Battle of Athens, Dahl found his clothes drenched black with sweat. His hands shook so violently he needed the camp doctor to light his cigarette.

10. Retreat and Evacuation from Greece

Impractical command orders and relentless ground-strafing force surviving pilots to abandon airfields and evacuate in overloaded transport planes.

War Realities

Ground-strafing by fighter planes is one of the most terrifying and helpless experiences for pilots caught in the open. German Messerschmitts caught Dahl and David Coke out in the open near their tents during a refuelling stop. They skimmed low with blazing guns while the single aerodrome defense consisted of just one Bofors gun.

Dahl stood naked beside a three-legged basin when a line of Messerschmitt 109s attacked Elevsis aerodrome. This forced him and David Coke to throw themselves flat on the grass.

Command Incompetence

Commanders frequently issued impractical and confusing orders that left pilots isolated at deserted, makeshift airstrips. The remaining pilots were ordered to abandon Elevsis at dawn and fly their seven Hurricanes to a tiny, unequipped strip near Megara. A lone local man was rolling out a runway there with a steam-roller.

Dahl and his fellow pilots sat on a rocky ridge above Megara watching a nearby oil tanker get bombed and set ablaze by Stukas. No ground crew or instructions awaited them.

Courier Missions

Senior officers occasionally entrusted pilots with absurdly dangerous and cryptic courier missions during chaotic retreats. The Air Commodore arrived in a black car at the Megara strip to hand Dahl a sealed, floppy package wrapped in red wax. He ordered him to fly it back to Elevsis and deliver it directly to a man named Carter.

Dahl flew back to the abandoned Elevsis airfield under the threat of Stuka attacks. He delivered the secret package to Mr Carter, who was staying behind to go underground, and promptly flew back.

The Greek Campaign

Operating fighter planes from poorly chosen and fully visible temporary bases practically guaranteed their destruction. Relocated to an extremely narrow strip at Argos surrounded by bright white tents and olive trees, the squadron was quickly spotted and systematically shot up by German twin-engined fighters.

Dahl and David Coke ate black olives and retsina wine under an olive tree while waiting for an ammunition ship to blow up. They correctly predicted that a scouting Messerschmitt 110 would bring a strafing squadron within ninety minutes.

Combat Hazards

Radio silence and fast-paced combat conditions created severe risks of friendly fire against allied non-combatant aircraft. Spotting a small twin-engined aircraft hugging the coast near Argos, Dahl switched his guns on and dove to attack it. He was violently flagged off by David Coke at the last second.

Dahl discovered that the target he almost shot down was an unarmed de Havilland Rapide passenger aircraft operating in the combat zone.

The Escape

Surviving pilots were evacuated from collapsing fronts via overloaded transport planes operating from dangerously short fields. Ordered to leave their remaining aircraft behind or fly them to Crete, the surplus pilots were crammed into a small passenger plane on a short strip with only their log books.

Dahl and nine other pilots piled into a de Havilland Rapide that bounced over a stone wall at the end of a 200-yard field, barely managing to stagger into the air.

11. Strategic Aftermath and Middle East Service

The failed Greek campaign strains Allied desert forces, while subsequent Middle East postings end due to recurring head injury complications.

Aftermath

Arriving bedraggled and unshaven in Alexandria without local currency, you lead your fellow stranded pilots straight to the wealthy home of major supporters who open their entire residence to you. Roald Dahl rang the doorbell of Major Bobby Peel and his wife. Their Sudanese butler Saleh welcomed the bedraggled group, providing bathrooms, razors, and a sumptuous breakfast in a four-story mansion. On 15 May 1941, Dahl described the Greek campaign in a letter to his mother.

Historical Impact

Draining troops and planes from the Desert Army to support the failed Greek defense left forces so diminished that Rommel threatened Egypt. It required two years to rebuild for the Battle of Alamein. You note in retrospect that the entire Grecian episode was an important blunder that cost precious aircraft and resources. It led to years of defeats in the desert before the region was secured. 80 Squadron pilot Bill Vale and other survivors faced these severe strategic consequences.

Middle East War Service

Traveling completely alone through vast, uninhabited wilderness creates a profound psychological experience of isolation and wonder. You navigate hostile territories using minimal provisions. Roald Dahl drove his 1932 Morris Oxford saloon across the 200 miles of the Sinai Desert from the Suez Canal to Beersheba. He carried a watermelon for emergency rations and a five-gallon can of drinking water at a maximum speed of 35 miles per hour before the radiator boiled over after 5 hours.

At the tiny settlement of Ramat David 30 miles inland behind Mount Carmel, Dahl met a tall, bearded man with a German accent. He explained that their refugee community of 40 or 50 children was striving to secure a permanent homeland rather than simply fighting Hitler.

Return to Britain

Intensive dog-fighting and high gravitational stresses during steep turns triggered blinding headaches and temporary blackouts. This forced medical personnel to permanently ground you and invalidate you back to Britain. After flying intensively at Haifa for 4 weeks, including 8 hours and 10 minutes in the air across 5 flights in a single day on 15 June, Roald Dahl suffered severe knife-like pains in his forehead during dogfights. This led to his medical discharge as 4 pilots were killed in the squadron over a two-week period.

You sailed on troop-ships via Durban, Cape Town, and Freetown, where you purchased sacks of lemons, limes, tinned marmalade, and silks. You then endured 2 weeks of convoy attacks on the Ile de France during the voyage from Freetown to Liverpool.

12. Childhood Memories and Pranks

Childhood Memories

For young schoolboys, local sweet-shops and fanciful myths about candy ingredients form the absolute center of their social lives and imagination. You pool your pocket money of sixpence a week to buy cheap, highly processed candies.

• Liquorice Bootlaces cost two for a penny;
• Sherbet Suckers cost two for a penny;
• Gobstoppers cost a penny each.

A schoolboy named Thwaites terrified and entertained his peers by claiming that Liquorice Bootlaces were manufactured from boiled-down rats and rat-poison. He warned that eating them caused a fictitious disease called ratitis.

Childhood social life centers around fanciful sweet-shop myths and elaborate covert acts of revenge against abusive authority figures.

Intense hatred for an abusive authority figure can drive children to orchestrate elaborate, covert acts of revenge. Exasperated by the filth, meanness, and hostility of a local shopkeeper, a group of five boys devised a clandestine plan to slip a dead mouse into a popular sweet jar as a shock tactic. Roald Dahl and his four friends found a dead mouse beneath a classroom floorboard at the age of eight years old. Dahl successfully slipped it into the Gobstopper jar at Mrs Pratchett's sweet-shop.

Authoritarian school administrators utilized public collective inspections to root out perpetrators of community pranks. When a shopkeeper reported a traumatic prank, the headmaster lined up the entire student body in the playground so the accuser could walk down the ranks and identify the culprits. Mr Coombes marched Mrs Pratchett around the entire school lineup of one hundred small boys aged six to twelve at Llandaff Cathedral School. She successfully pointed out Dahl and his four friends during this investigation.

10 Key Ideas

1. Expatriates living in sweaty foreign climates cultivated bizarre habits and eccentric behaviors, such as U.N. Savory sprinkling Epsom salts on his dinner jacket shoulders to fake dandruff, to maintain their sanity in harsh environments.
2. Local native workers and expatriates navigated deadly wildlife threats, such as Salimu the shamba-boy standing motionless before striking a six-foot-long mamba snake, while enduring severe malaria treated by injections of Atebrin and quinine.
3. The declaration of World War II triggered the immediate mobilization of British civilian expatriates, leading Roald Dahl to command an askari platoon of the King's African Rifles and block escape routes on the south coast road.
4. Mdisho, belonging to the martial Mwanumwezi tribe, independently took his master's valuable Arab sword to decapitate a local German sisal-planter named Fritz Kleiber upon hearing that war had begun.
5. After leaving the Shell Company to enlist in the RAF, Roald Dahl learned to fly Tiger Moths in Nairobi and completed advanced training on Hawker Harts at a massive desert base in Habbaniya.
6. Due to wrong coordinates provided by a commanding officer, Roald Dahl crashed his Gloster Gladiator in the Western Desert on September 19, 1940, at a speed of seventy-five miles an hour and narrowly escaped the burning wreckage.
7. Recovering from severe head injuries in Alexandria after five months in hospital, Dahl subsequently flew a Hawker Hurricane non-stop to Greece and achieved his first aerial victory against a Ju 88 bomber near Khalkis.
8. Operating from temporary bases against overwhelming odds, Dahl and the depleted squadron flew multiple daily sorties during the Battle of Athens before enduring relentless ground-strafing and an overloaded transport plane evacuation from Greece.
9. Intense dog-fighting and high gravitational stresses triggered blinding headaches and temporary blackouts, resulting in Dahl's permanent medical grounding and voyage back to Britain on troop-ships.
10. Childhood social life centered around fanciful sweet-shop myths, including the fictitious disease ratitis, and elaborate covert acts of revenge like slipping a dead mouse into Mrs Pratchett's Gobstopper jar.