Biggles was real?

In a previous post I included the Biggles series in my top 10 favourite military fiction books. Well, according to this article in the Daily Mail, Captain Bigglesworth may have been a real person, as apparently, “A 1918 combat report by a pilot called Major James Bigglesworth has been found at the RAF Museum in a collection of papers that once belonged to Biggles author WE Johns.”

It’s hard to imagine that the real Biggles could have had a career so long and varied as the fictional one, but I’d like to think so. I particularly love the cover artwork on the edition of ‘Biggles – Pioneer Air Fighter’ that they show in this article, I have that very edition (no doubt gathering mold in a box somewhere in my garage) and the colours always appealed, especially the yellow Fokker DVII with its wing breaking off in the background.