A complete story of the Great War's air battles, from eastern to western front, from the skies and ses of Europe to those of the Middle East and Africa.

A dramatic and fascinating account of aerial combat during World War I, revealing the terrible risks taken by the men who fought and died in the world's first war in the air. Little more than ten years after the first powered flight, aircraft were pressed into service in World War I. Nearly forgotten in the war's massive overall death toll, some 50,000 aircrew would die in the combatant nations' fledgling air forces. The romance of aviation had a remarkable grip on the public imagination, propaganda focusing on gallant air 'aces' who become national heroes. The reality was horribly different. Marked for Death debunks popular myth to explore the brutal truths of wartime aviation: of flimsy planes and unprotected pilots; of burning nineteen-year-olds falling screaming to their deaths; of pilots blinded by the entrails of their observers. James Hamilton-Paterson also reveals how four years of war produced profound changes both in the aircraft themselves and in military attitudes and strategy. By 1918 it was widely accepted that domination of the air above the battlefield was crucial to military success, a realization that would change the nature of warfare forever.

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.

" ... This is not an attempt to write a complete history of the aerial war, or to record all the wonderful and brave deeds of our airmen. A book that would include all these would be valuable as a work of reference, but it would be essentially different from the aim of this small effort. A certain number of the incidents here related have been toldelsewhere, and in some cases there has been no need to go beyond the official reports. Some have been published for the first time, and to some I have been able to add hitherto unpublished details ..."--The Preface, page vi

This magnificent and comprehensive volume was written in 1922 by Professor Walter Raleigh. Originally entitled The History of the War in the Air (Being the story of the part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force) this all embracing and vital work features the most important account of the aerial battles, the men and the machines.??Raleigh was Professor of English Literature at Glasgow University and Chair of English Literature at Oxford University. On the outbreak of the Great War he turned to the war as his primary subject. His finest book on the subject is this, the first volume of The War in the Air, which was an instant publishing success. Unfortunately the projected second volume was never completed as Raleigh died from typhoid (which he contracted during a visit to the Near East) in 1922. Nonetheless, Professor Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh has attained classic status as a result of this mighty work and this legendary volume ensures his status as a military author par excellence.