This is a first-hand account of the authors grandfather, Guy Mainwaring Knocker and his experiences as a pilot in the R.F.C. in the First World War written as a series of letters and diary entries. He wrote letters virtually every day to his family, while he trained in England and was in service in France, and often illustrated them with little sketches. Guy was a gifted artist, particularly pencil and Pen & ink, and also an excellent photographer. He flew with No 65 (Fighter) Squadron that was formed in June, 1916 as a fighter squadron, and flew to France in March 1917 in time to play a prominent part in the air operations during the Battles of Arras. In June 1917, the squadron moved to Calais for special patrol work in the Dover Straits area, to intercept enemy aircraft raiding England.

Ranked among the top five American flying aces of World War I, Elliot White Springs (1896-1959) was credited with shooting down twelve enemy aircraft during his tour in France. In the postwar years, he was a prolific writer whose nine books include War Birds: Diary of an Unknown Aviator, a classic air combat narrative. After his father's death in 1931, Springs inherited Springs Mills and quickly became one of South Carolina's most innovative and successful textile mill owners. Edited by David K. Vaughan, this engaging collection of Springs's wartime correspondence follows the derring-do of an accomplished World War I fighter pilot before he became one of the best-known tycoons in modern South Carolina history. Following enlistment at Princeton University, Springs was sent to England, where he trained with the Royal Flying Corps and joined the prestigious British 85 Squadron, commanded by Canadian ace William "Billy" Bishop. Springs had earned four kills before being wounded in a crash landing in June 1918. On return to duty he transferred to the 148th Aero Squadron of the U.S. Army, where he remained for the next four months. By the end of the war, Springs had amassed eight more kills and was awarded the British Distinguished Flying Cross and the American Distinguished Service Cross. Because of his unique career as a pilot in both British and American flying squadrons, Springs was able to offer especially colorful descriptions of his flight training and aerial combat experiences from both perspectives. Grouped into sections according to his training and combat assignments, Springs's letters from his combat years are rife with the wit, bravado, and fatalism of a young aviator deeply enthralled with the wartime culture of England and France. His detailed accounts of dogfights bring readers into the action with all the vigor and danger of the era. In contextualizing this correspondence, Vaughan explores Springs's complex relationships with his father and young stepmother on the home front and maps the connections between Springs's firsthand experiences and his subsequent literary endeavors. This collection highlights the thrills, tactics, and technical aspects of early air warfare from the candid perspectives of a brave young flyer with deadly aim, unflinching nerves, and a prosperous future waiting for him back in his native South Carolina.

John Edwin Gardiner was the eldest son of James "Jimmy" Gardiner, the most prominent Liberal politician of his day in western Canada. Edwin was called up by the RCAF in November 1940, received his wings in October 1941, and travelled to England in early November 1941. On August 18, 1942, on the eve of the Dieppe Raid, Edwin wrote to his father: "At long last we're going to take part in something big which you will read all about in the papers long before you get this letter." Edwin Gardiner was killed when his plane went down on the following day. James Gardiner, who had lost two brothers in the First World War, had now lost his son to war. His wife, Violet, found the grief unbearable and took her own life in October 1944, yet another casualty of war.

A rip-roaring gallop through the lives of the Royal Flying Corps air crew in the Great War. They lived their lives amidst a strange dichotomy as they moved from safety to dire danger, and back again in a matter of hours. This created a dreadful strain that could soon shred anyone’s mental health. On the ground they were cloistered in simple but adequate accommodation several miles behind the lines. Farmhouses, barns and huts were used, but they were all far better than the squalor faced by the infantry scurrying in their muddy trenches. Flying personnel were blessed with beds and blankets. They could set up a decent mess and socialise to their heart’s content. A smorgasbord of entertainments, with perhaps an old out of tune piano, access to drink and occasional vigorous games of mess rugby. There were visits to local towns which offered tantalizing glimpses – and sometimes more - of the female of the species. A glimpse was probably never enough for most of these very young men. What more could a chap want? But when they were flying over the front it was no laughing matter. Death lurked in the skies, zooming in its ‘winged chariots’ out of the sun, or bursting from the clouds. A moment’s loss of concentration, or tactical blunder, could consign them to being shot down and falling thousands of feet until the crunching impact of terra firma brought a terrible relief. But better that than a punctured petrol tank, the first flickers of flame, then the roaring inferno and the agonies of incineration. There was little or nothing for them to laugh about in the air. But when back on the ground they tried to put aside their fears.

Includes the Aerial Warfare In Europe During World War II illustrations pack with over 180 maps, plans, and photos. Gen Henry H. “Hap.” Arnold, US Army Air Forces (AAF) Chief of Staff during World War II, maintained diaries for his several journeys to various meetings and conferences throughout the conflict. Volume 1 introduces Hap Arnold, the setting for five of his journeys, the diaries he kept, and evaluations of those journeys and their consequences. General Arnold’s travels brought him into strategy meetings and personal conversations with virtually all leaders of Allied forces as well as many AAF troops around the world. He recorded his impressions, feelings, and expectations in his diaries. Maj Gen John W. Huston, USAF, retired, has captured the essence of Henry H. Hap Arnold—the man, the officer, the AAF chief, and his mission. Volume 2 encompasses General Arnold’s final seven journeys and the diaries he kept therein.

The 1914-18 conflict narrated through the voices of the men whose combat was in the air. 'This moving book uses letters and diaries to evoke the terrible cost of such warfare...Sleepless nights, separated lovers and grieving parents are recalled with painful immediacy in this meticulously researched tribute to those who died or were lucky enough to survive' DAILY MAIL The empty chairs belonged, all too briefly, to the doomed young First World War airmen who failed to return from the terrifying daily aerial combats above the trenches of the Western Front. The edict of their commander-in-chief was the missing aviators were to be immediately replaced. Before the new faces could arrive, the departed men's vacant seats at the squadron dinner table were sometimes poignantly occupied by their caps and boots, placed there in a sad ritual by their surviving colleagues as they drank to their memory. Life for most of the pilots of the Royal Flying Corps was appallingly short. If they graduated alive and unmaimed from the flying training that killed more than half of them before they reached the front line, only a few would for very long survive the daily battles they fought over the ravaged moonscape of no-man's-land. Their average life expectancy at the height of the war was measured only in weeks. Parachutes that began to save their German enemies were denied them. Fear of incarceration, and the daily spectacle of watching close colleagues die in burning aircraft, took a devastating toll on the nerves of the world's first fighter pilots. Many became mentally ill. As they waited for death, or with luck the survivable wound that would send them back to 'Blighty', they poured their emotions into their diaries and streams of letters to their loved ones at home. Drawing on these remarkable testimonies and pilots' memoirs, Ian Mackersey has brilliantly reconstructed the First Great Air War through the lives of its participants. As they waited to die, the men shared their loneliness, their fears, triumphs - and squadron gossip - with the families who lived in daily dread of the knock on the door that would bring the War Office telegram in its fateful green envelope.

Reveals how memoirs are rich repositories of information about the ways in which veterans remembered, understood, and recounted their war.

An action-packed military biography of a British fighter pilot and his rise through ranks during World War I. World War I pilot Albert Ball’s invincible courage and determination made him a legend not only in Britain but also amongst his enemies, to whom the sight of his lone Nieuport Scout brought fear. Ball enlisted in the British army in 1914 with the 2/7th Battalion (Robin Hoods) of the Sherwood Foresters, Notts, and Derby Regiment. By October, 1914, he had reached the rank of Sergeant and then became Second-Lieutenant to his own battalion in the same month. In June, 1915, he trained as a pilot in Hendon. Then in October, he obtained Royal Aero Club Certificate and was transferred to the Royal Flying Corps. He further trained at Norwich and Upavon, being awarded the pilot’s brevet in January, 1916. In May, he opened his score, shooting down an Albatros C-type over Beaumont. Days later he shot down two LVG C-types, while flying his Nieuport 5173. Captain Albert Ball made his final flight on May 7, 1917, when he flew as part of an eleven-strong hunting patrol into action against Jagdstaffel 11, led by Lothar Von Richthofen. Albert was pursuing the Albatros Scout of Lothar, who crash-landed, wounded. Then many witnessed Albert dive out of a cloud and crash. He died minutes later in the arms of a French girl, Madame Cecille Deloffre. Ball rose from obscurity to the top rank of contemporary fighter pilots in only 15 months. In that period, he had been awarded the MC, DSO, and two Bars, and was credited with at least 44 victories.

"The Aviators is the true story of Eddie Rickenbacker, Jimmy doolittle, and Charles Lindberg - - three extraordinary Americans who betwee World War I and World War II pushed the limits of flights and redefined heroism through their genius, daring, and uncommon courage. Winston Groom's rich narrative tells their intertwined stories - - from broken homes to Medals of Honor (all three would receive them) ; barnstorming to the greatest raid of World War II; front-page triumph to anguished tragedy ; and near death to ultimate survival - - as all took to the sky, time and again, to become exemplars of the spirit of the "greatest generation."--Back cover.

This is the remarkable story of the American First World War serviceman Arthur Clifford Kimber. When his country entered the Great War in 1917, Kimber left Stanford University to carry the first official American flag to the Western Front. Fired by idealism for the French cause, the young student initially acted as a volunteer ambulance driver, before training as a pilot and taking part in dogfights against ‘the Boche’. His letters home give a vivid picture of what Kimber witnessed on his journey from Palo Alto, California to the front in France: keen-eyed descriptions of New York as it prepared for the forthcoming conflict, the privations of wartime Britain and France, and encounters with former president Theodore Roosevelt and Hollywood actress Lillian Gish. Kimber details his exhilaration, his everyday concerns and his horror as he adapts to an active wartime role. Arthur Clifford Kimber was one of the first Americans on the front line after the entry of the US into the war and, tragically, also one of the last to be buried there – killed in action just a few weeks before the end of the war. Here, his frank letters to his mother and brothers, compiled, edited and put in context by Patrick Gregory and Elizabeth Nurser, are published for the first time.