McKee Alexander. The Friendless Sky: The Great Saga of War in the Air, 1914-1918

Endeavour Press, 2016. — 272 p.In 1914, Britain declared war on Germany. It was to be their first major war since Waterloo. Having already won international wars with Denmark and France, Britain was ready. For the first time in history, the British Expeditionary Force set out to cross the Channel under the air cover. With aviation still in its infancy when the war began, with it only being five years since the first flimsy French aeroplane cross the Channel at 45 mph, the air cover provided was rather primitive. Up above the mud-soaked soldiers who fought over the devastated, trench-scarred landscape that was northern France, a new kind of war was being born. Flimsy biplanes and triplanes wheeled and spun, engines roaring, wires screaming and guns chattering. In the skies above the poppy-fields, men became aces and were cut down in their prime: Albert Ball, Jean Navarre. Max Immelmann and Manfred von Richtofen, the ‘Red Baron’.