Fighter Heroes Of WWI. The Untold Story Of The Brave And Daring Pioneer Airmen Of The Great War

Cover Type: Softcover
Book Condition: Fine
Jacket Condition: None Issued
Publisher: Collins
Publisher Place: London
Publisher Year: 2009
Edition: Reprint

Description: 374 pages. Book appears to have hardly been read and is in Fine condition throughout.

Publishers Description: Few are aware of the risks that the pioneering airmen of World War I took. This oral history conveys the perils of those early days, the thrills of learning to fly, and the horrors of war in the air at a time when pilots carried little defensive armament and no parachutes. The men who joined the Royal Flying Corps in 1914 were the original heroes of flying, treading into unknown territory and paving the way for later aerial combat. They became icons for the soldiers in the trenches, and a stark contrast to the hundreds on the ground fighting faceless hundreds as men fought aircraft to aircraft and man to manfor the first time the air became a battlefield of its own. In 1914 aircraft were a questionable technology, used for only basic reconnaissance. But by 1918, hastened by the terrible war, aircraft were understood to be the future of modern warfare. The war changed flying forever. The Wright brothers achievements of a mere 10 years earlier and Blriots crossing of the Channel just a few years before the war seemed a distant memory as aircraft became killing machinesthe war becoming the ancestor of the fearsome air wars of later years. The stories are presented to the reader in a frank and open way, revealing the feelings of the men who defended the trenches from above and witnessed the war from a completely different perspective. These first-hand accounts tell the almost totally unknown tale of men who rewrote the rules of military engagement and changed the course of modern history as a result.

ISBN: 9780007274949