KNIGHTS OF THE AIR - Canadian Aces of World War I  by Harris, John Norman

Toronto: Macmillan, reprinted 1960 2nd Canadian edition, , HARD BOUND IN DUST JACKET, 5 1/2 X 8 1/2, FINE/FINE CONDITION, ( dj price clipped + very small prev. owners name on frt. free end paper)160 pages, many drawings.-----------------------------------High above the mud and slaughter of the trenches, the little wood and fabric airplanes looped, rolled, banked, in mortal duel. Some of the soldiers who stared at them in the skies of France and Flanders in 1915 were Canadians. They had not dreamt when they joined the army that they would ever leave the ground. Yet within three years Canadians had proved themselves masters of this new form of fighting and a dozen Canadians ranked among the top aces of the world. This book is about those Canadian masters of the aerial dogfight. Barker of Manitoba is here—incredibly daring hero of the French and Italian fronts who, with both legs and one arm shattered by enemy bullets, shot down four attackers and drove off the rest before he crashed behind his own lines: crowning exploit of a flying career in which he had destroyed 5o enemy aircraft. Collishaw of Vancouver is here, with his score of 6o. Only half-a-dozen aces of all nations surpassed him—and only Bishop among the Canadians, with his tally of 72.------------------------------------------------------ For Billy Bishop was most famous of all. In his first six weeks of flying he scored 17 victories and won the DSO and the MC. Four weeks later he added the VC. Many other aces are here—McKeever, MacLaren, Claxton, McCall, Quigley, Carter, Burden, Milne, Bell-Irving. Flying without parachutes in machines which burnt like torches when they caught fire, these airmen took frightful risks. Below them, men lived in muddy trenches under shell-fire; they depended on the work of the airmen above and the airmen did not let them down. This is their story.