No Parachute

A Classic Account of War in the Air in WWI

Arthur Gould Lee

• Publisher: Grub Street Publishing
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9781911621058
• eBook ISBN:
  9781909808676
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military Biographies
• Index: History

This account of the Great War puts you right in the action—from one of the fighter pilots of the Royal Flying Corps.
 
From the young airmen who took their frail machines high above the trenches of World War I and fought their foes in single combat, there emerged a renowned company of brilliant aces—among them Ball, Bishop, McCudden, Collishaw, and Mannock—whose legendary feats have echoed down half a century. But behind the elite pilots in the Royal Flying Corps, there were many hundreds of airmen who flew their hazardous daily sorties in outdated planes without ever achieving fame.
 
Here is the story of one of these unknown flyers—a story based on letters written in the day, telling of a young pilot's progress from fledgling to seasoned fighter. His descriptions of air fighting, sometimes against the Richthofen Circus, of breathless dogfights between Sopwith Pup and Albatros, are among the most vivid and immediate to come out of World War I.
 
Arthur Gould Lee, who rose to the rank of air vice-marshal and also authored the classic Open Cockpit, brilliantly conveys the immediacy of air war, the thrills and the terror, in this honest and timeless account.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Author’s Note
• Foreword
• Part One: The Pilots’ Pool
• Part Two: The Ypres Front
• Part Three: The Battle of Messines
• Part Four: The Vimy Front
• Part Five: Air Defence of London
• Part Six: The Third Battle of Ypres
• Part Seven: The Arras Front
• Part Eight: The Battle of Cambrai
• Part Nine: Cambrai Aftermath
• Postscript
• Appendix A: The Failure in High Command
• Appendix B: Trenchard’s Strategy of the Offensive
• Appendix C: Why No Parachutes?