"Over 270 different cards of 132 individual aviators are included in this ground-breaking edition. Boelcke, Immelmann, the Richthofen brothers, Udet, and G?ring are just a few of the famed aces and Pour le Mé́rite flyers photographed by Postkarten-Vertrieb Willi Sanke. Each postcard is given full page coverage, accompanied by a brief history of each man, together with his victories and highest attained award"--Page 2 of cover.

Starting in 1909 with the beginnings of military aviation and the aviation industry and ending with their catastrophic postwar contraction, the book examines the totality of the air war: its heroism, romantic myths, politics, strategies, and cost in men and materiel. John H. Morrow, Jr., also elaborates on the advancements in aircraft and engine technology and production during airpower's development into a viable and threatening military weapon within a decade of its origins.

The 1914-18 conflict narrated through the voices of the men whose combat was in the air. 'This moving book uses letters and diaries to evoke the terrible cost of such warfare...Sleepless nights, separated lovers and grieving parents are recalled with painful immediacy in this meticulously researched tribute to those who died or were lucky enough to survive' DAILY MAIL The empty chairs belonged, all too briefly, to the doomed young First World War airmen who failed to return from the terrifying daily aerial combats above the trenches of the Western Front. The edict of their commander-in-chief was the missing aviators were to be immediately replaced. Before the new faces could arrive, the departed men's vacant seats at the squadron dinner table were sometimes poignantly occupied by their caps and boots, placed there in a sad ritual by their surviving colleagues as they drank to their memory. Life for most of the pilots of the Royal Flying Corps was appallingly short. If they graduated alive and unmaimed from the flying training that killed more than half of them before they reached the front line, only a few would for very long survive the daily battles they fought over the ravaged moonscape of no-man's-land. Their average life expectancy at the height of the war was measured only in weeks. Parachutes that began to save their German enemies were denied them. Fear of incarceration, and the daily spectacle of watching close colleagues die in burning aircraft, took a devastating toll on the nerves of the world's first fighter pilots. Many became mentally ill. As they waited for death, or with luck the survivable wound that would send them back to 'Blighty', they poured their emotions into their diaries and streams of letters to their loved ones at home. Drawing on these remarkable testimonies and pilots' memoirs, Ian Mackersey has brilliantly reconstructed the First Great Air War through the lives of its participants. As they waited to die, the men shared their loneliness, their fears, triumphs - and squadron gossip - with the families who lived in daily dread of the knock on the door that would bring the War Office telegram in its fateful green envelope.

Illustrated with detailed artworks of combat aircraft and their markings, 'The Essential Aircraft Identification Guide: Aircraft of WWI' is a comprehensive study of the aircraft that fought in the Great War of 1914–18. Arranged chronologically by theater of war and campaign, this book offers a complete organizational breakdown of the units on all the fronts, including the Eastern and Italian Fronts. Each campaign includes a compact history of the role and impact of aircraft on the course of the conflict, as well as orders of battle, lists of commanders and campaign aces such as Manfred von Richtofen, Eddie Rickenbacker, Albert Ball and many more.

An unassuming book, still one of those which grip the reader from beginning to end. When the author started to write his daily impressions and adventures, it was to keep in touch with his people, to quiet those who feared for his safety every moment, and at the same time to give them a clear idea of his life. Without boasting, modestly and naturally, he describes the adventures of an aviator in the great World War. It could well serve as a guide to those who are studying aviation. Although he has avoided the stilted tone of the school-master, still his accomplishments as a knight of the air must fascinate any who know aviation. For the aviators as well as their machines have accomplished wonders. They are rightly called the eyes of the army-these iron-nerved boys who know no fear. Admiral Schley's historic words after the battle of Santiago: "There will be honor enough for us all" can well be said of the aviators of all nations now at war. For in spite of all enmity the aviators have followed the knightly code of old which respects a good opponent and honors him. Captain B�lcke's death, after his meteoric career, was mourned alike by friend and foe. Great as is the damage done by this war, horrible as is its devastation, it has acted as a tonic on aviation. Before the war, of course, there had been some achievements of note. Since the day when the Wright brothers announced their conquest of the air, man did not rest till the problem was completely solved. And this war, which continually has spurred man to new murderous inventions, has also seen the airplane in action. While at the start of the war the comparatively few airplanes in use were employed as scouts, a few months saw them fitted with machine guns and devices for dropping explosives. Hand in hand with this came the rapid development of the airplane itself. To-day we can truthfully say that a journey, even a long one, by airplane is less dangerous than an automobile ride through a densely populated district. But one thing we must not forget, even though the invention of the airplane by the Wrights is an American one (in spite of the fact that the Wrights give some credit to the German Lilienthal) the Europeans have far outstripped us in the development of this invention. As sad as it is to say it, we must admit that in regard to aviation America is still in its infancy. Every European nation has outdone us. When, in the summer of 1916, we sent our troops to Mexico, they had only six old machines at their disposal. Instead of relying on these for information, General Pershing had nothing but anxiety for their safety every time they made a flight. But here, too, if all signs are not deceiving, war has helped us to awake. Aside from the activity in our training-schools where thousands of our young men, surpassed by none anywhere, are being trained, the building of our airplanes is taking a great step forward. The experience gained on the other side is helping us here. At first it was the automobile factory that furnished the satisfactory motor. But now through the war the airplane factories have made enormous progress and helped the aviator to attain new marks in speed, reliability and endurance. While this war lasts every improvement in the airplane is utilized to make added destruction. Yet we can not doubt that after the war we will see further progress made in the airplane in the peaceful contests which are to follow.INTRODUCTION By Prof. Hermann B�lcke, DessauOswald B�lcke was born on the 19th of May, 1891, in Giebichenstein, a suburb of Halle on the Saale. Here his father was professor in the high school. His sister, Luise, and his two brothers, Wilhelm and Heinrich, were born before him in Buenos Ayres, Argentina. There his father had had his first position-rector of the German Lutheran School.