Customer Reviews

Fighting the Flying Circus (The Great Commanders Series)

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Eddie Rickenbacker was, of course, the top-scoring American ace of the First World War, shooting down 26 enemy aircraft. This hard-to-find book is _the_ classic account of aerial combat in World War One. It fairly breathes the cocky, pugnacious spirit of the successful combat aviator, and is, in itself, a remarkable survival story.

Rickenbacker was a squadron leader of note as well as a formidable single-combat warrior, and his observations on command are applicable today. Like other great aviators who racked up impressive victories but survived, Rickenbacker was aggressive and confident but not rash. He took pains to plan his missions and to assure their success, attending to the smallest details himself (even to inspecting the individual rounds loaded for his SPAD's machine guns).

Rickenbacker is a skillful narrator, and his precise description of the lethal ballet of aerial combat is readable and comprehensible for the flyer and non-flyer alike. Rickenbacker had the reputation of being overbearing at times, but this is not communicated in his writing. Indeed, one of the most memorable passages in this book describes his repeated but ultimately unsuccessful attempts to bring down a particular German observation plane.

This is a wonderful book that deserves to be read. Any reader with an interest in flying, but especially combat flying, can do no better than to pick up this excellent work.

Rickenbacker's adventures, told in Rickenbacker's own words. This story is the definitive acount of WWI air combat. The only books that come close are by British pilot Arch Whitehouse, but those lack the descriptions and heart of Eddie Rickenbacker's "Fighting the Flying Circus". One can almost smell the dirt and grass from the runways and see the tracer fire from the machine guns. Throughout we see the character of a simple midwestern man who became the Ace of Aces in American flying history. The individual flying episodes are memorable such as the time he refused to let an (allied) French Nieuport get behind him after he became lost on patrol. He later found out that a German pilot in a captured Neiuport was slipping across the lines to wreck havoc on the Allies. Or the time an anti-aircraft shell lodged in his engine yet failed to detonate. The story is vivid and thrilling until the end, even though we all know the larger outcome.

I read this years ago while Rickenbacker still lived. This race car driver turned fighter pilot wrote this he was still a young man just back from the first air war in 1919. In reading it again as an adult I was surprised to find that he was quite honest and self efacing. When he made a mistake he was forthcoming about it. In many incidents contained in this book it is obvious that luck played an enormous part in survival of pilots in those days, as the training and equipment by today's standards was to put it bluntly, inadequate. I imagine that this book is still a good one for fighter jocks of today because there are still lessons here that apply to today's combat environment. It is always easier to learn from someone else's experiences than to repeat them yourself. If you want to learn what it was like to fight in the air in the First World War this is your book. It is on a par with James McCudden's book "Flying Fury," and that is high praise indeed.

Since reading this book I have read Rickenbacker's autobiography and was not nearly as impressed as I was with this book. By the 1960's Rickenbacker had mellowed and his words were carefully chosen and not nearly as spontaneous as in this book. Afer all, by then he had been a CEO of Eastern Airlines, and seemed more guarded about his reputation.

The Kindle price of this fine book works for me!

Loved the book "Fighting the Flying Circus", very interesting, filled with facts found no where else! I would love to get a copy of the orginal 1919 book! What do other 94th Aero Sq fans think of the book? (...)Thanks.

I have a first edition, signed and frame copy of this book and need clarity on your 1995 publishing date. Can I assume this is a first, second or whatever printing. Thanks

I have not read this book, but I have an original autographed copyright 1919, and would like to find out the value of the book. Does anyone know how I can do this??