Flying For France, With the American Escadrille at Verdun

  1916, beneath the canvas of a huge hangar mechanicians are at work on the motor of an aeroplane. Outside, on the borders of the aviation field, others liter awaiting their aerial charge's return from the sky. Near the hangar stands a hut-shaped tent. In front of it several short-winged biplanes are lined up, inside it three or four young men loll about in wicker chairs. They wear the uniform of French army aviators. These uniforms and the grim-looking machine guns mounted on the upper wings of the little aircraft, are the only warlike notes in a pleasantly peaceful scene. The war seems remote. It is hard to believe that the greatest of all battles - Verdun - rages only 25 miles to the north, and that the field; the hangars; the mechanicians; the aviators; and the little aeroplanes are all playing a part therein....(Amazon)

   "Flying For France" is the classic WWI account written by James R. McConnell in 1916. It is his eyewitness account of aerial combat operations with the American Escadrille. McConnell not only presents a wealth of technical information regarding training and flying, but he additionally describes the flying and fighting experiences in the aerial combat arena. The look of the sun on the morning fog, silver bullets, the red flames belching from the artillery below.

   His book was published in 1917. But shortly there after he was killed in combat. "Flying For France" has remained a perennial favorite since and has more recently served as a primary source for the movie "Flyboys".