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A.J.L. Scott

This candid WWI memoir takes readers inside the cockpit with an RAF officer on the Western Front from the outbreak the Great War until its end in 1918.

Louis Arbon Strange was at the Royal Air Force’s Central Flying School when war broke out in 1914. He immediately reported to Royal Flying Corps headquarters and joined No.5 Squadron. Strage remained on active duty throughout the war, serving his country over the Western Front from August of that year until the enemy’s surrender.

Strange transferred to No.6 Squadron in 1915 and went on to form and command No.23 Squadron. Due to illness, he did not accompany his Squadron to France, but spent that time training others. He took charge of the Machine-Gun School at Hythe and other schools of aerial gunnery before returning to the Front. There he commanded the 23rd Wing, and finally took command of the 80th Wing from June 1918 until the end of the war. As Strange chronicles his experiences, he provides unique insight into how and why the Allied airmen eventually prevailed.

Casemate

Vintage Aviation Library

Sixty Squadron RAF: A History of the Squadron from Its Formation

Charles J. Biddle

A classic aviation memoir: an American pilot’s account of air combat in the First World War.
 
 Charles J. Biddle, a Philadelphia native, was active in France beginning in 1917, where he flew as a volunteer, initially for the French in Escadrille 73, and then in the American 103rd Aero Squadron, the Lafayette Escadrille, and then the 13th Aero Squadron and 4th Pursuit Group, which he commanded.
 
 His memoir was published shortly after his return to the United States and provides an immediacy lacking in other books that were written later. Accounts of US pilots from this period are relatively rare, and this one paints a compelling picture of a group of Americans fighting as volunteers for the French. Biddle’s US compatriots soon established their own capability and wrung free of French direction—and as this book reveals, it was largely because of their combat prowess.
 
 For his service, Biddle was awarded the French Legion of Honour, the Croix de Guerre, the American Distinguished Service Cross, and the Belgian Order of Leopold II. This memoir gives us a unique perspective on America’s participation in the Great War.

The Way of the Eagle

Louis Arbon Strange

This candid WWI memoir takes readers inside the cockpit with an RAF officer on the Western Front from the outbreak the Great War until its end in 1918.

Louis Arbon Strange was at the Royal Air Force’s Central Flying School when war broke out in 1914. He immediately reported to Royal Flying Corps headquarters and joined No. 5 Squadron. Strange remained on active duty throughout the war, serving his country over the Western Front from August of that year until the enemy’s surrender.

Strange transferred to No. 6 Squadron in 1915 and went on to form and command No. 23 Squadron. Due to illness, he did not accompany his squadron to France, but spent that time training others. He took charge of the Machine-Gun School at Hythe and other schools of aerial gunnery before returning to the Front. There he commanded the 23rd Wing and finally took command of the 80th Wing from June 1918 until the end of the war. As Strange chronicles his experiences, he provides unique insight into how and why the Allied airmen eventually prevailed.

Recollections of an Airman

Rudolf Stark

A rare day-to-day account by a young German squadron leader in Jagdstaffel 35 during the grim last year of World War I.
 
 Originally published in 1933, Wings of War provides minute descriptions of kills, losses, and the Germans’ step-by-step retreat in the face of increasingly overwhelming Allied forces in the air.
 
 Brutally honest and vividly written, Rudolf Stark’s account of the endgame of the Imperial German Army Air Service provides an intimate, front-row glimpse of the death-throes of a once-feared corps. This book also contains reproductions of some of the author’s paintings depicting life on the Western Front.
 
 “A work of depth and insight, illustrated with the author’s own photographs and paintings from a cockpit perspective . . . League members are highly encouraged to read this classic of aviation history literature.” —Over the Front
 
 “Provides a thoughtful look at the decline of Germany, its military, and its air force in the last half of 1918.” —World War One Illustrated

Wings of War: An Airman's Diary of the Last Year of the War

Claude W. Sykes

"McScotch" Mannock

“McScotch” himself describes his book and pays tribute to a colleague in this note, which appears at the front of the volume:

“This book consists of the reminiscences of an ordinary fighter pilot of the R.F.C. who had the privilege of serving in one of the leading Fighter Squadrons and who had the honor of being the friend of the supreme fighter of all the Air Forces, that indomitable and lovable patriot, ‘MICK’ MANNOCK, V.C., D.S.O., M.C. ”

Available records and publications show “McScotch” himself as a fighter pilot with 40 Squadron, holding the rank of lieutenant and then captain. He is credited with 12 kills of German opponents.

This is a detailed and exciting account of squadron life and shows the bravery and true comradeship of these flyers.

Fighter Pilot

Dramatic true stories of air combat featuring Germany’s greatest pilots: “A World War I aviation history classic” (Over the Front).

In these riveting accounts, Manfred von Richthofen, Max Immelmann, Oswald Boelcke, and other famous daredevil flyers are joined by lesser-known but equally resourceful colleagues such as Rudolf von Eschwege and Hans Schüz as they take part in furious battles in the sky—and close escapes on the ground when brought down on the wrong side of the lines.

German War Birds contains some of the earliest information to appear after the war about air combat in the Middle East and Russia, as well as the Western Front, and about the significance of observation balloons as targets that were viciously attacked. The author focuses on the heart of the action and recreates the experiences of the airborne war with immediacy and excitement—drawing the reader into events as they happen.

German War Birds

Ira Jones

A classic memoir of the early days of aviation by a longtime Royal Air Force pilot, including his harrowing, exhilarating adventures in the Great War.

Ira “Taffy” Jones was a well-known air fighter during the First World War, having scored about forty victories flying SE5 scouts in France with 74 Squadron. Familiar in flying circles, Jones recorded stories drawn from his own experiences during the war and wrote of the many personalities he had met or known by association, both during the war and in the postwar flying years.

An Air Fighter’s Scrapbook recreates the atmosphere of the days of the biplane, of wartime flying, of early peacetime adventures in the air, the development of civil aviation, and breathtaking record-beating flights—all evoking the sheer delight in flying that characterized those early years.

An Air Fighter's Scrapbook

A.R. Kingsford

A WWI pilot’s memoir of flying with the unit that dropped the first bomb at night on Germany—and, on November 11, 1918, the last one.

One of the many who came to Europe from all over the British Commonwealth to fight in the First World War, A. R. Kingsford had sailed from New Zealand in 1914. He joined the Royal Flying Corps in 1917 and learned to fly at Northolt before being posted to 33 Squadron at Lincoln, where he flew against Zeppelins sent from across the North Sea on night bombing raids. Kingsford joined 100 Squadron in France early in 1918 and had an active career with this famous squadron up until the end of the war.

Full of adventure, Night Raiders of the Air is a first-person account of this young volunteer’s experiences during the Great War—a fascinating read for anyone interested in the early days of military aviation.

Night Raiders of the Air

M.E. Kaehnert

A visceral and accurate firsthand account of flying with the Imperial German Air Force during WWI.

The airborne fighting squadrons of the Imperial German Luftstreitkräfte—known as the Jagdstaffel or Jasta—were a fearsome and elite force throughout the Great War. Though the entire force was dissolved and their aircraft destroyed by order of the Treaty of Versailles, the stories of the pilot remain in books like Jagdstaffel 356.

Although the author has given this Jagdstaffel a fictitious number and changed the names of the pilots composing it, the vivid descriptions and accurate narrative have the genuine ring of truth. Anyone who has had experience of flying on the Western Front or who has studied it since will recognize this chronicle as factual. Many experts believe this work draws on the experience of the Bavarian Jasta 35, which flew against the British; however, whatever its real number may have been, the squadron depicted in Jagdstaffel 356 undoubtedly fought in the air over Flanders in 1918.

Jagdstaffel 356: The Story of a German Fighter Squadron

Johannes Werner

The story of the World War I fighter pilot the Red Baron himself sought to emulate …

German air ace Oswald Boelcke was a national hero during World War I. He was the youngest captain in the German air force, decorated with the Pour le Mérite while still only a lieutenant, and credited with forty aerial victories at the time of his death.

Becoming a pilot shortly before the outbreak of the war, Boelcke established his reputation on the Western front first in reconnaissance, then in scouts, before finally becoming the best known of the early German aces, along with Max Immelmann. After Immelmann’s death, he was taken off flying and traveled to the Eastern front where he met a young pilot called Manfred von Richthofen. Transferred back to the Western Front in command of Jasta 2, he remembered von Richthofen when new small fighting units were formed and chose him as a pilot for his new Staffel. Boelcke was tragically killed in a flying accident during combat in October 1916, although not before the reputation of his unit, together with his own, had been firmly established forever.

This absorbing biography was written with the blessing of Boelcke’s family. Professor Werner was given access to his letters and other papers, and presents here a rounded and fascinating portrait of a great airman and a remarkable soldier who became known as the father of the German Jagdflieger.

This edition has been completely reoriginated while remaining faithful to the language of the time of its original translation from German in the 1930s.

Knight of Germany: Oswald Boelcke German Ace

James McCudden

The day-to-day insights of a brilliantly daring World War I ace that only ends with his death at the age of 23 …

James McCudden was an outstanding British fighter ace of World War I, whose daring exploits earned him a tremendous reputation and, ultimately, an untimely end. Here, in this unique and gripping firsthand account, he brings to life some of aviation history’s most dramatic episodes in a memoir completed at the age of twenty-three, just days before his tragic death.

During his time in France with the Royal Flying Corps from 1914 to 1918, McCudden rose from mechanic to pilot and flight commander. Following his first kill in September 1916, McCudden shot down a total of fifty-seven enemy planes, including a remarkable three in a single minute in January 1918. A dashing patrol leader, he combined courage, loyalty, and judgment, studying the habits and psychology of enemy pilots and stalking them with patience and tenacity.

Written with modesty and frankness, yet acutely perceptive, Flying Fury is both a valuable insight into the world of early aviation and a powerful account of courage and survival above the mud and trenches of Flanders. Fighter ace James McCudden died in July 1918, after engine failure caused his plane to crash just four months before the end of World War I. His success as one of Britain’s deadliest pilots earned him the Victoria Cross.

Flying Fury: Five Years in the Royal Flying Corps

Hanna Reitsch

The memoir of the female aviator who became Hitler’s favorite pilot.

The Sky My Kingdom is the fascinating autobiography of the famous World War II test pilot Hanna Reitsch. As the war progressed, Reitsch was invited to fly many of Germany’s latest—and increasingly desperate—designs, including the rocket-propelled Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet and several larger bombers, on which she tested various mechanisms for cutting barrage balloon cables. After crashing on her fifth Me 163 flight, she was badly injured but insisted on writing her report before falling unconscious and spending five months in the hospital. Eventually, she became Adolf Hitler’s favorite pilot. Reitsch was one of only two women awarded the Iron Cross First Class during World War II, and the only woman awarded the Luftwaffe Combined Pilot and Observer Badge with Diamonds. She survived many accidents and was badly injured several times.

In the last days of the war, Reitsch was asked to fly her companion, Col. Gen. Robert Ritter von Greim, into Berlin to meet with Hitler. The city was already surrounded by Red Army troops, who had made significant progress into the downtown area when they arrived, landing on a city street and traveling to the Führerbunker. The aircraft she used was the justly famous Fieseler Storch, already well known for the exploit that rescued Mussolini, only adding to the legend of both Reitsch and that aircraft. She is said to have overheard Hitler laying out plans for Nazi commanders to join together in mass suicide when it was obvious that the war was over. She also hoped to fly out propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels’ six children, who had been staying in the bunker since April 22 with their parents, but neither Joseph nor Magda Goebbels would allow it. She managed to escape Berlin herself, on April 29, by flying out through heavy Russian antiaircraft fire.

She was a devoted and idealistic Nazi who adored Adolf Hitler and refused to believe the reports of concentration camps and torture. Not until much later would she say that she had been “disgusted” by what she witnessed in the Third Reich. She was held for eighteen months by the American military after the war, interrogated, and subsequently released—ultimately to become a champion glider pilot, as gliders were the only craft German citizens were allowed to fly. Hers is a story that arguably stands as unique in the great drama of World War II.

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