On a Wing and a Prayer: The Untold Story of the Pioneering Aviation Heroes of Wwi, in Their Own Words - Softcover

Levine, Joshua

4.19

32 ratings by Goodreads

9780007271054: On a Wing and a Prayer: The Untold Story of the Pioneering Aviation Heroes of Wwi, in Their Own Words

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007271050 ISBN 13: 9780007271054

Publisher: Harpercollins Pub Ltd, 2008

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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 Bl�riot'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.

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About the Author:

Joshua Levine is a playwright, television writer and producer, and the author of Forgotten Voices of the Blitz.

Review:

`A vivid, moving story of the men who fought the Great War in the Air. Quite superb.' Max Arthur `Those magnificent men in their flying machines recount in their own words just how mad and magnificent it was to be an air-ace in World War One. Joshua Levine's compilation is enthralling and breathtaking'. Chris Powling, Classic FM Guestlist `This is a superior example of the genre from a writer at the top of his game.' Air Marshal Stuart Peach

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