Customer Reviews

First Air Campaign (Great Campaigns)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
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2 star:		(1)
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This book is a good basic survey of the first campaign of aerial warfare, from the opening days when gentlemen amateur aviators threw bricks at each other to the highly systematized deployments of 1918.

"The First Air Campaign" combines a substantial discussion of tactics, overall air strategy, and technological innovation with a surprisingly human touch. This last aspect of the book derives in part from several well-placed "capsules," or vignettes separate from the text. This allows sample stories of individuals into the text without interfering with the main discussion's flow. I found a section on women pilots particular interesting and new.

Finally, the book's photographic reproductions are superb. Connecting the black-and-white faces of young men whose voices the text recreates either as they rhapsodize about fighting like knights above the clouds or write resignedly of their (usually accurate) premonitions of death puts a power into this book that can't easily be described.

This is an excellent book with a great format. The authors created a chapter for each year of the war and then followed each up with a conclusion and a facts page/biography. Although not as indepth relating to those who flew, it gives an otherwise well encompassing look at WWI aviation. This book is definitely going to spark an interest in anyone who reads it.

I was really enjoying this book until I hit page 37. That is because I then realized there was no page 38. Or 39 for that matter. In fact, it does not resume until page 46, so I would say be wary of purchasing the softcover version of this book. To be fair it does seem like a nice introduction to this subject. I just have a preference for new books containing all their pages.