the boys find a dead pilot in a parachute half way up the mountain......
does that mean that the pilot of the crashing plane, sort of said, bye boys! and jumped out just as the plane was crashing ? I hve always wondered. I read it in 1966
PP, if you read Chapter 6, you will see that the dead pilot - the 'Beastie' - is in fact a victim of a dog-fight, which none of the boys saw, that took place high above the island during the night. That is, he was involved in the war that the boys themselves were being evacuated from. He is not the pilot of the aircraft the boys arrived in.
Plus they were public schoolboys and therefore sons of the wealthy who wanted to preserve their bloodlines, while presumably the working class kids were fried back home. Maybe the plane was chartered privately as during the crisis they were the only ones who could afford it?