The piston engines that powered Second World War fighters, the men who
designed them, and the secret intelligence work carried out by both
Britain and Germany would determine the outcome of the first global air
war. Advanced jet engines may have been in development but every
militarily significant air battle was fought by piston-engined
fighters.
Whoever designed the most powerful piston engines would win air
superiority and with it the ability to dictate the course of the war as
a whole. This is the neverbefore- told story of a high-tech race, hidden
behind the closed doors of design offices and intelligence agencies, to
create the war's best fighter engine. Using the fruits of extensive
research in archives around the world together with the previously
unpublished memoirs of fighter engine designers, author Calum E. Douglas
tells the story of a desperate contest between the world's best
engineers - the Secret Horsepower Race.