Publisher's Synopsis
This book tells of the experiences of a young British cavalry officer, Michael Howard, the son of a woollen goods manufacturer, who goes to France with the British Expeditionary Force in August 1914. After taking part in the battles of Mons, Le Cateau and on the River Aisne, he is badly wounded at the First Battle of Ypres. After recovering from his wounds, he spends most of 1915 training the new troopers of his shattered regiment. When his respected mentor and commander is posted away, he is replaced by an unpleasant martinet brought out of retirement; a man totally out of touch with modern warfare. The frustrated Michael then decides to join the Royal Flying Corps. He makes two life-long friends during his flying training. One is an American volunteer and the other is his flying instructor, who later becomes his squadron commander. After spending some months with the Sopwith Aircraft Company as a test pilot, Michael successfully commands a flight of Sopwith Pups on home defence duties before joining a scout squadron in France. He has a successful flying career, receiving several decorations and reaching the rank of Major when he takes over his own Squadron which is equipped with the French Spad X111, a fast, high flying machine which needs some special flying techniques to get the best out of it. After surviving the air fighting over the Battlefields of the Somme, Arras, Passchendale and Cambrai, the exhausted Michael goes to Paris on leave at Christmas 1917, where he joins up with his best friends Algy Fiske and Jimmy Burns and his sister Elisabeth, who is serving as an ambulance driver. Algy is being treated in the American Hospital for wounds suffered in an aerial combat. This Parisian interlude turns into a very romantic period for all of them and dramatically affects all their lives. Following the desperate air fighting during the huge German offensive in March 1918, Michael returns to Sopwiths and is involved in testing the new Snipe and Salamander aircraft. He takes a flight of Salamander ground-attack machines over to France during the final victorious advance of the Allies and is shot down by ground fire and slightly wounded. For Michael, the war is now over and following the death of his father, a victim of the dreadful influenza epidemic, he is obliged to take over the running of the family's Leeds factory. Michael is very happily married and renews his interest in aviation in the 1930s. The book contains more purely historical information than most historical novels, but I wanted to correct some of the myths that received popular support post war. The first point I want to make is that the nature of the war made huge casualties inevitable and the biggest killer was artillery, which was responsible for about 60% of the deaths and wounds. I would also like to point out that the British casualties were only about one third of those suffered by the French, Germans, Russians and Austrians. Even the Americans had 200,000 casualties in a matter of weeks. The old canard that hundreds of thousands of British soldiers were sent to their deaths by uncaring generals who lived a life of luxury in beautiful chateaus does not bear scrutiny. These generals were confronted by something way beyond their previous experiences, but they had become highly competent professionals by 1918. I personally have a very soft spot for the British regulars of 1914. They were poorly led at the very top level and they were the last of the Tommy Atkins of Rudyard Kipling. Fighting against enormous odds, their deadly rifle fire shook the German soldiers to the core. Alas, by the end of 1914, very few of them remained alive. The chances of survival by the RFC flyers was very small. During one period in 1917, the expected life span of a new pilot was no more than two weeks after his arrival on a squadron. Finally, read John Terraine, Robin Neilands and Lyn Macdonald if you want the truth and treat the politicians memoirs with scepticism.
