THE FIRST WAR IN THE AIR.
Trawling through my library for a new book to read I came across this book. I must admit I have no recollection of ever reading it or even when I may have bought it, in fact it was a totally new book to me !!!!! Clearly old age must be creeping up on me and impacting my memory at the very least....now where was I .....oh yes.
This book discusses the air war from 1914 to 1918 in a very interesting way. It does not go into much detail about planes, pilots or battles etc but in a loose chronological way covers major topics like "why biplanes", "making the flying man", "how they lived", "parachutes and fatalism", and of course many other matters. This means the book is very readable, exciting and interesting more like a novel than a history book.
The simple message that comes across clearly is that early aviators, especially those in the various military's, were true pioneers and generally lived short lives and met violent unpleasant deaths. The wonder for us is that there were so many of them willing to take unbelievable risks just to advance knowledge of flying and serve their countries at the same time. The author reminds us that it is impossible today to fully understand the attitudes of 100 years ago just as much as they would not understand much of our beliefs today.
Overall an excellent book and very well written on a fascinating subject, but still a puzzle why I have not read this before now !!!!!!
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