With the looking glass of the actions of Reitsch, Mulley underscores the strategic futility of the V1 and V2 programme, and rightly affirms that Werner von Braun was completely aware that his weapons were manufactured using extensive slave labour. Given the recent furore about gender pay disparity (in the BBC and across the corporate world) it is ironical that the two heroines were at the forefront of fighting for equal pay (and endemic misogyny) eighty years ago.

Perhaps the most worthwhile part of the book to me was the  highlighting of the personal trauma that the failure of Operation Valkyrie (Stauffenburg’s attempted assassination of Hitler) caused to his extended family.  If only his briefcase had been planted a few feet to one side, world history would have been very, very different. Melitta’s struggle to sustain the life of her husband (and other relatives) is very moving.

In the book’s final chapters, underlining their skill, both heroines managed to make flights into Berlin in conditions when it is surprising any Axis aircraft could survive a minute in those hostile skies. The final chapters and epilogue make very valid points but are somewhat laboured.

So overall a great human interest story, but one where one cannot help but feel that opportunities have been missed in explaining the technical and piloting skill of these two remarkable ladies.