The First Great Air War

I probably shouldn't be fussy, since  books about First World War aviation aren't always that easy to find (unless you happen to be near Cambridge University Library, in which case a little digging unearths a reasonable number).  However, this book wasn't all that great to be honest.  There was a lot about the pilots, and it was, in effect, a conglomeration of stories about individual pilots.  There was a lot said about how the observers and the gunners and the pilots of reconnaisance aircraft deserved more recognition, but not a lot about those individuals.  Most of the people followed were fighter pilots, generally aces (and often the more famous, high-scoring aces).

The first few chapters were very good, with some interesting stories about the early days of the Royal Flying Corps.  Tortoise races, anyone?  (Fly in a wind speed higher than your aircraft's top speed.  The person who gets blown backwards the furthest is the winner!).  However, the balance of the book wasn't great.  1916 and 1917 got the lions share of the book, with only two short chapters on 1918, despite the fact that there was a lot of fighting in 1918 and it was most of the year before the armistice was signed.  There was a definite bias towards the Western Front and the RFC, with a handful of German pilots, a few French and American, an even smaller handful of Italian pilots (and the pilots of the RFC who went to Italy), and pretty much nothing about the Eastern Front, or the Austrian side of the fighting in Italy.  In fact, it could probably have been improved by explicitly focussing on just the Western Front, rather than giving the lives of two or three Italian pilots, with a focus primarily on one of them.  There were a lot of comparisons to the Second World War, and I'm not convinced they really helped explain anything.

That said, some of the personal stories were interesting.  The Red Baron was described as a rabid dog who should've been shot, and there was a big emphasis on the fact that the war in the air wasn't chivalrous, but was really rather nasty and that even if they were knights of the air, knights weren't very nice when they were in battle.  Wasn't entirely convinced by the description of the Red Baron to be perfectly honest, but there you go.  There were some very amusing tales of various things that went on in the air, and some more poignant ones.

On the whole, it was pretty mediocre.  If it weren't for the fact that it's quite difficult to find books on this topic, I'd probably say don't bother.  It doesn't say anything particularly special, and you can probably find the amusing stories in just about any account of WWI aviation--there were some rather bizarre occurrences.  I also felt that it was overly critical of Trenchard and his tactics.  If you have an interest in the topic, it's reasonable.  If you're not desperately interested, don't bother.

(Just realised: I should probably tell you who the author is.  It's the one by Richard Townsend Bickers, published 1988)

They Fought For the Sky

This is basically the only book I've really come across that's dedicated just to WWI aviation as a general history of it. There are some books on specific aircraft (Osprey Aircraft of the Aces), and generally a WWI book will mention them in the vaguest terms, as will (usually) a history of military aviation, although they quite often just start with 1918 when the RAF was formed. Unfortunately, I don't think it's in print. One sec. Yeh, I've just looked on Amazon and the most recent edition they have is 1977. But it's really good. I was totally gripped, and it wasn't just because I love WWI aviation (at least, I don't think it was). I really enjoyed it.

There was more mention of the thrilling exploits of the RNAS in Belgium, though I got the impression that a lot of it came from Churchill's book... There were a lot of references to Churchill too, although to be fair, Churchill was Chief of the Air Ministry or something along those lines, and also as the Minister for the Navy he was involved with the RNAS too.

It was a really good introduction to the air war, with sections on the people involved (the aces), the aircraft, the tactics. However, I don't think it really went deep enough to be completely satisfying. I still want to know more. I saw one or two new books in a bookshop in London on the topic, but they don't seem to have them at the library (with the exception of First Blitz, which is absolutely excellent, but does only cover a limited aspect of the air war). Still, it was an enjoyable book, and the pictures were great because I was trying to put strings on a Sopwith Triplane at the time, and the instructions with the model weren't very good, so I was able to see what it should look like.

SE5/5a Aces of World War 1

Another Osprey book. Boy you're probably getting fed up of me reveiwing them. Especially because, as per usual, it was very well and professionally written, incorperated the diary extracts that were used well, gave lots of information about what happened to the pilots after the war, and had plenty of pictures to break up what could be a somewhat tedious book otherwise. Also, the books are kept down to pretty short, manageable sizes, despite the vast amount of detail they give. Given how long it's taking me to read another history book at the moment (will review when I eventually finish it), that's definitely a bonus.

One of the things that surprised me about this was the number of pilots who went on to fight again in WW2. I always just assumed it'd only be a handful, and I guess it probably was, but a lot of the pilots who survived the war did, it seems (amongst pilots of SE5/5a's at any rate) go on to fight with the RAF again.

Very interesting, but a bit of an anorak book I have to admit. So if you don't have a particular interest in aircraft or the first world war, I wouldn't really recommend it. If you do, however, it's worth getting hold of a copy. Although I do think they're quite expensive so I get them from the library.

Bristol F2 Fighter Aces of World War I

Yeh, I'm an aeroplane geek. You get over it :D.

Very interesting. A little bit hard to digest all at once, because there was a lot of information. What really did surprise me was how many pictures there were of the aircraft etc. I've always seemed to think that there weren't so many pictures of WWI aircraft floating around out there. This book proved me otherwise.

I liked the fact that it gave information about what happened to the people after the War and where they ended up.

I have to add, that although I enjoyed it a lot, if you're not interested in planes, please don't bother to read it. It's about aircraft. It's very academic and well written and detailed, but if you don't care about it, you really won't enjoy it one little bit.