ISBN: 9780007274949

Few are aware of the risks that the pioneering airmen of World War I took. This oral history conveys the perils of those early days, the thrills of learning to fly, and the horrors of war… More...

Few are aware of the risks that the pioneering airmen of World War I took. This oral history conveys the perils of those early days, the thrills of learning to fly, and the horrors of war in the air at a time when pilots carried little defensive armament and no parachutes. The men who joined the Royal Flying Corps in 1914 were the original heroes of flying, treading into unknown territory and paving the way for later aerial combat. They became icons for the soldiers in the trenches, and a stark contrast to the hundreds on the ground fighting faceless hundreds as men fought aircraft to aircraft and man to man--for the first time the air became a battlefield of its own. In 1914 aircraft were a questionable technology, used for only basic reconnaissance. But by 1918, hastened by the terrible war, aircraft were understood to be the future of modern warfare. The war changed flying forever. The Wright brothers' achievements of a mere 10 years earlier and Bleriot's crossing of the Channel just a few years before the war seemed a distant memory as aircraft became killing machines--the war becoming the ancestor of the fearsome air wars of later years. The stories are presented to the reader in a frank and open way, revealing the feelings of the men who defended the trenches from above and witnessed the war from a completely different perspective. These first-hand accounts tell the almost totally unknown tale of men who rewrote the rules of military engagement and changed the course of modern history as a result. Media >, [PU: William Collins; HarperCollins]<

2009, ISBN: 0007274947

[EAN: 9780007274949], [PU: HarperCollins UK], Gut/Very good: Buch bzw. Schutzumschlag mit wenigen Gebrauchsspuren an Einband, Schutzumschlag oder Seiten. / Describes a book or dust jacket… More...

[EAN: 9780007274949], [PU: HarperCollins UK], Gut/Very good: Buch bzw. Schutzumschlag mit wenigen Gebrauchsspuren an Einband, Schutzumschlag oder Seiten. / Describes a book or dust jacket that does show some signs of wear on either the binding, dust jacket or pages., Books<

2009, ISBN: 0007274947

[EAN: 9780007274949], [PU: Harpercollins Pub Ltd], Befriedigend/Good: Durchschnittlich erhaltenes Buch bzw. Schutzumschlag mit Gebrauchsspuren, aber vollständigen Seiten. / Describes the … More...

[EAN: 9780007274949], [PU: Harpercollins Pub Ltd], Befriedigend/Good: Durchschnittlich erhaltenes Buch bzw. Schutzumschlag mit Gebrauchsspuren, aber vollständigen Seiten. / Describes the average WORN book or dust jacket that has all the pages present., Books<