The Last Enemy (autobiography)

The Last Enemy, published in America as Falling Through Space, is an autobiographical book by Spitfire pilot Richard Hillary. Richard Hillary was born in Sydney, Australia, on 20 April 1919 but was educated at Shrewsbury School in England and Trinity College, Oxford. He joined the Royal Air Force at the start of World War II. It covers his training and his experiences in the RAF, the Battle of Britain and his ordeal after suffering severe burns to his face and hands after a crash. He underwent plastic surgery, by the famous pioneering surgeon Archibald McIndoe at Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead, and returned to flying at RAF Charterhall in November 1942. He was lost on night training when his Blenheim crashed on 8 January 1943.

He wrote the book in New York where he was recovering from his burns and subsequent surgery. He had gone to the United States to raise public awareness of the war in Europe, the United States not declaring war on Nazi Germany until after Hitler declared war on the United States in the wake of Pearl Harbor, although he was not allowed to appear in public himself due to fears his scarred appearance might prove counterproductive.

His biographer, Denis Richards, writes that the book and its author met with instant acclaim, although the book was unusual in the depth of its storytelling:

The author was acclaimed not only as a born writer but also as a representative of the doomed youth of his generation, although in his constant self-analysis he was in fact a most untypical British fighter pilot of 1940.

The book was first published in 1942 under the US title Falling Through Space with a cover showing an airman plummeting through the sky. However, this was felt to be inappropriate, and for the British edition a line from The Bible "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death" (I Corinthians 15:26) was chosen. A television adaptation was produced in 1956.