The First Air War 1914 1918

Historian Lee Kennett takes on the vital task of detailing the World War I aviator in this complete overview of the first air war, that Richard P. Hallion calls, "A welcome and long overdue addition to the literature of military aviation." "The whole subject of the first air war is like some imperfectly explored country: there are areas that have been crisscrossed by several generations of historians; there are regions where only writers of dissertations and abstruse monographs have ventured, and others yet that remain terra incognita," historian Lee Kennett tells his readers. There are very few books that explore military avition and its history to the fullest extent as Kennett has done in First Air War. The purpose of this book is to act as a complete overview on topics and histories that have previously gone unexplored. He tells of World War I fliers and their experiences "on all fronts and skillfully places them in proper context" (Edward M. Coffman, author of The Old Army). In considerate detail, Kennett tells the full story on how a few planes became the armies of the sky.

Go beyond the dogfights and immerse yourself in the lives of six people, from both sides of the conflict, who experienced the first air war. Join them as they train to fly, gather intelligence, fight aerial battles and drop bombs. This fully illustrated graphic novel follows Marjorie Stinson, a teenaged American flying instructor; James Moses, a Canadian observer and warrior of the Six Nations Confederacy; Maurice Arondel, an expert French balloonist; Captain Heinrich Mathy, a German Zeppelin commander; Manfred von Richthofen, the famous Red Baron; and Eric Ohman, a Canadian fighter pilot. Their captivating stories provide insight into the history and consequences of the first air war.

" ... This is not an attempt to write a complete history of the aerial war, or to record all the wonderful and brave deeds of our airmen. A book that would include all these would be valuable as a work of reference, but it would be essentially different from the aim of this small effort. A certain number of the incidents here related have been toldelsewhere, and in some cases there has been no need to go beyond the official reports. Some have been published for the first time, and to some I have been able to add hitherto unpublished details ..."--The Preface, page vi

This magnificent and comprehensive volume was written in 1922 by Professor Walter Raleigh. Originally entitled The History of the War in the Air (Being the story of the part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force) this all embracing and vital work features the most important account of the aerial battles, the men and the machines.??Raleigh was Professor of English Literature at Glasgow University and Chair of English Literature at Oxford University. On the outbreak of the Great War he turned to the war as his primary subject. His finest book on the subject is this, the first volume of The War in the Air, which was an instant publishing success. Unfortunately the projected second volume was never completed as Raleigh died from typhoid (which he contracted during a visit to the Near East) in 1922. Nonetheless, Professor Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh has attained classic status as a result of this mighty work and this legendary volume ensures his status as a military author par excellence.

A dramatic and fascinating account of aerial combat during World War I, revealing the terrible risks taken by the men who fought and died in the world's first war in the air. Little more than ten years after the first powered flight, aircraft were pressed into service in World War I. Nearly forgotten in the war's massive overall death toll, some 50,000 aircrew would die in the combatant nations' fledgling air forces. The romance of aviation had a remarkable grip on the public imagination, propaganda focusing on gallant air 'aces' who become national heroes. The reality was horribly different. Marked for Death debunks popular myth to explore the brutal truths of wartime aviation: of flimsy planes and unprotected pilots; of burning nineteen-year-olds falling screaming to their deaths; of pilots blinded by the entrails of their observers. James Hamilton-Paterson also reveals how four years of war produced profound changes both in the aircraft themselves and in military attitudes and strategy. By 1918 it was widely accepted that domination of the air above the battlefield was crucial to military success, a realization that would change the nature of warfare forever.

In 1917, David Lloyd George declared that airmen were 'the cavalry of the clouds - the knighthood of this war.' This romantic image was fostered post-war by writers of adventure stories and the stunts of Hollywood filmmakers, and yet it was far from the harsh reality of the life of an airman. From their baptism of fire in 1914 carrying out reconnaissance and experiencing the first dogfights, to the breakthrough in 1918 which claimed heavy casualties, the aerial defenders of Britain were continually tested. In Cavalry of the Clouds John Sweetman describes the development of British air power during the First World War on the Western Front, which culminated in the creation of the first independent air force, the RAF. By making use of the correspondence of airmen and ground staff of all nationalities, he illustrates the impact this new type of conflict had on those involved and their families at home. Extensively researched and handsomely illustrated with contemporary photographs, Cavalry of the Clouds is an essential reference work for any student of military history.