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First to Fly - The Story of the Lafayette Escadrille, the American Heroes Who Flew For France in World War I (Paperback)
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First to Fly - The Story of the Lafayette Escadrille, the American Heroes Who Flew For France in World War I (Paperback)
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List price R298
Loot Price R278
Discovery Miles 2 780
You Save R20 (7%)
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If the Wright brothers' 1903 flights in Kitty Hawk marked the birth
of aviation, World War I can be called its violent adolescence--a
brief but bloody era that completely changed the way planes were
designed, fabricated, and flown. The war forged an industry that
would redefine transportation and warfare for future generations.
In First to Fly, lauded historian Charles Bracelen Flood tells the
story of the men who were at the forefront of that revolution: the
daredevil Americans of the Lafayette Escadrille, who flew in French
planes, wore French uniforms, and showed the world an American
brand of heroism before the United States entered the Great War. As
citizens of a neutral nation from 1914 to early 1917, Americans
were prohibited from serving in a foreign army, but many brave
young souls soon made their way into European battle zones: as
ambulance drivers, nurses, and more dangerously, as soldiers in the
French Foreign Legion. It was partly from the ranks of the latter
group, and with the sponsorship of an expat American surgeon and a
Vanderbilt, that the Lafayette Escadrille was formed in 1916 as the
first and only all-American squadron in the French Air Service.
Flying rudimentary planes, against one-in-three odds of being
killed, these fearless young men gathered reconnaissance and shot
down enemy aircraft, participated in the Battle of Verdun and faced
off with the Red Baron, dueling across the war-torn skies like
modern knights on horseback. Drawing on rarely seen primary
sources, Flood chronicles the startling success of that intrepid
band, and gives a compelling look at the rise of aviation and a new
era of warfare.
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