Books You Might Be Looking For?

[rainbase]

Here's one I've never seen before, from 1916. Dan, do you know anything about this book? Starting Bid: $49.00

WITH THE FLYING SQUADRON (HAROLD ROSHER)
1916, 149 PAGES, PHOTOS, GOOD SOLID COPY. * PERSONAL NARRATIVE BRITISH AIRMAN WWI.

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Pat Carisellas book about Eugene Bullard. This one always seem to go for a lot of money. It's stating at $34.99

THE BLACK SWALLOW OF DEATH BULLARD COMBAT AVIATOR WWI
THE BLACK SWALLOW OF DEATH THE INCREDIBLE STORY IF EUGENE JACQUES BULLARD THE WORLD’S FIRST BLACK COMBAT AVIATOR by P. J. Carisella and James W. Ryan copyright 1972 This hard to find 271 page hard cover book is the inspiring story of the first African American combat aviator who left America at a very young age to travel to France where he ultimately fought and flew in both World wars with the French Foreign Legion. Book has some wear, front hinge has some play in it, page opposite title page - presumably with a photo, is missing, it is an ex library book, so it does have all the stamps, stickers, pockets, etc, etc, expected in withdrawn library materials

[dpolglaze]

Originally Posted by rainbase

Here's one I've never seen before, from 1916. Dan, do you know anything about this book? Starting Bid: $49.00

WITH THE FLYING SQUADRON (HAROLD ROSHER)
1916, 149 PAGES, PHOTOS, GOOD SOLID COPY. * PERSONAL NARRATIVE BRITISH AIRMAN WWI.

It's a nice little book. This appears to be the US edition, MacMillan 1916. Originally published by Chatto & Windus in the UK under the title "In the Royal Naval Air Service: Being the Letters of the Late Harold Rosher to his Family" this book is exactly that - letters from Rosher from August 1914 to February 1916.

It's been reprinted several times, including in Greenhill's Vintage Aviation Library series (#10) and by Naval and Military Press more recently.

Nick Forder has been sending portions of the UK version on C&CI's listserve. Here's a portion of the introduction:

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
I. TRAINING
II. ON HOME SERVICE 23
III. RAIDS ON THE BELGIAN COAST 47
IV. WITH THE B.E.F. 61
V. TAKING A NEW MACHINE TO FRANCE 93
VI. WITH THE B.E.F. AGAIN
VII. ON HOME SERVICE AGAIN 121
VIII. WITH THE B.E.F. ONCE MORE 125
IX. ON HOME SERVICE ONCE MORE 133

INTRODUCTION
Harold Rosher was born at Beckenham on the 1 8th November, 1893, and was educated at The Dene, Caterham, and subsequently at Woodbridge. Although as a boy he suffered severely from acute asthma and bronchitis, he did well at school ; and the pluck which carried him through the moral distresses of asthma helped him to hold his own in games, despite the fact that up to the age of sixteen he was considerably under the average height. As his health did not cease to give anxiety, he was taken for a holiday to India (being with his father the guest of the Maharajah Ranjitsinhji, Jam Sahib of Nawanagar) in 1909. In 1913, for the same reason, he made a trip to South Africa with his sister. It was his health again which helped to decide his career. An open-air life was considered to be essential, and he became a student at the South Eastern Agricultural College, Wye, remaining there until the outbreak of the war.

One of Harold's greatest chums at the Agricultural College was a young and rich German landowner named K . At the latter's invitation Harold spent the summer vacation of 1913 in Germany, and the two young men toured on motor-cycles through a great part of Germany and Austria. In August 1914 K was to celebrate his majority, and had asked Harold to the festivities. But on August 2nd, when war appeared inevitable, he wrote a letter of farewell to Harold in which he said that he did not expect they would ever meet again. The next day he telephoned from Charing Cross as he was leaving England, and Harold was overheard saying to him on the telephone : " Well, if we meet, mind you don't shoot straight,"

On the day of the declaration of war, Harold applied for a commission in the Royal Naval Air Service, and in order to save time he went immediately as a civilian pupil to Brooklands, where several months previously he had once been taken up in the air as a passenger. In the few days which elapsed before the War Office commandeered the Brooklands Aerodrome and ejected every civilian Harold progressed rapidly in the craft of flying. He was gazetted a Probationary Flight Sub-Lieutenant in the R.N.A.S. on August 18th and reported himself at Hendon. He remained there about six weeks, obtaining his aviator's certificate.

The letters which form this book were written between August 1914 and February 1916. They are spontaneous and utterly unstudied documents, and they have been printed almost exactly as Harold wrote them. Many of them are quite ordinary; most are spiced with slang ; the long ones de scribing his share in the great historic raids are thrillingly dramatic. But it would not be wise to set some letters above others.
None should be missed. Each contributes its due realistic share to the complete picture of an airman's life in war.

It is well that we should have every opportunity of estimating what that life is. For the air service is still quite a new service. Its birth lies within the memory of schoolboys. Few outsiders can imaginatively conceive for themselves the conditions of it, conditions in which the hour of greatest danger is precisely the hour of spiritual solitude and separation from all mankind. Further, the air service is now actually engaged in creating those superb precedents which members of the older services find ready for their fortifying and encouragement when the crisis comes, and this fact alone entitles it to a most special sympathetic attention from the laity. So far as my knowledge goes, no other such picture, so full and so convincing, of the air fighters' existence has yet been offered to the public. Here, perhaps, may mention that some organs of the London Press long ago desired to print the principal descriptive letters of Harold Rosher, which in private had aroused the admiration of journalists and literary men ; but it was felt that complete publication of the entire series within the covers of a volume would be more proper and more effective.

Three days after the date of the last letter Harold was killed. On 27th February, Major Risk, the CO. of the Dover Aeroplane Station being away on duty, Harold, as second in command, was in charge. Among other duties he had to train new pilots on fast machines, and he would always personally test a new machine or a newly-repaired machine before allowing anybody else to try it. On that Sunday morning he ordered a number of machines to be brought out of the sheds for practice flights.
Among them was one which had just been repaired after a mishap three weeks earlier. The pilot had already got into his machine. Harold told him to get out as the machine was untested, and himself took it up for a trial flight of eight or ten minutes.

Everything seemed to go right until Harold began the descent about a mile away from the Aerodrome. Then, at a height of 300 feet or less, the machine suddenly made a nose-dive and crashed to the ground. Harold was killed instantly. The disaster occupied seven seconds.

Dan

[rainbase]

Wonderful information, Dan. Thanks again.

[rainbase]

This is a sweet deal... starting at $49.99

Over the Front Aviation Planes Magazine 1997 - 2004 NEW
COMPLETE 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 NEW

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This looks really cool... check out the picture with Garros! Only $3,500

VINTAGE AVIATION AIR PHOTO ALBUM WWI FRANCE 1914 PILOT
ALBUM with 126 original photographs taken in France starting 1914. Principal
subject is "Toby", an RFC pilot. Includes one photo of Roland Garros, the great French pilot.

73 of the photos are approximately 4"x5", 2 action photos are approximately
4-1/2"x6-1/2", 51 are approximately 2-1/2x3". Some of the handwritten titles are: Toby August 1914; Pilots of escadrille at St Cyr; Airatic Hotel Buc, first week of the war; Bleriot monoplane; Toby, Louis Noel; Ian & Toby; Bill & Krause; Garos, Dumas & Pierrou; Vie sur Aisne 4th chasseurs a cheval; Escadrille MF44; Lt le Bouchir; Hangars Vauciennes with a M.F.; Hangar Lesges Aisne; Hangars at Verdun after raiding the Crown Prince;
Toby in 80 HP just off bombing; Toby's Lance Bombe with 8 bombs of 90 m/; First of escadrille c30 to arrive at Clavaucon to relieve Bleriot 30; Toby's MT with his mechanic & mitrailleuse; Morane 80 HP; Sgt Drouet, his observer was killed & Drouet landed with one motor smashed and the machine on fire; French Dirigeable; An Albatross; M Mitteraud visits escadrille Bleriot 30; Trenches close to Soissons; Greek volunteers who enlisted as a protest against the King's action; Albatross 140 HP Benz; Albatross brought down by Louis Noel: Beaumont; St Cyr; Lesges; Rambucourt; Soissons; 95 m/m gun on the road; anti-aircraft 75 m/m; Undergroundshelter; 120 m/m guns; Artillerymen's village; Pont-a-Mousson; 250 yds from Germans; Kangeroo aircraft.

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Here's another one I have never seen. It carries a "Buy It Now" price of $425

RARE SIGNED WWI "KNIGHTS OF THE AIR" LT BENNETT MOLTER!
Extremely rare signed copy of this WWI aviation book: KNIGHTS OF THE AIR by LIEUT. BENNETT MOLTER (D. Appleton, New York, 1918). Signed and inscribed on the fly leaf, "To Emma Crane, Now let me R.I.P. Bennett A. Molter". Red covers embosed with the wings-and-wreath device of the French air service. Noffsinger no. 1024, Smith no. 1245., unstated first edition, HB, 244 pps, 7.5 X 5. No dust jacket. The book describes the training and is a general commentary on flying of the period although Bennett does describe some of his personal experiences. B-2-1907

MOLTER, Bennett A. WORLD WAR ONE COMBAT PILOT WITH THE LAFAYETTE FLYING CORPS. French Service Aeronautique (1916-17); Brevet d'Aviateur Militaire (1917); pilote-aviateur Molter flew as a caporal with French operational squadron SPA.102 (1917); injured in a flying accident at his aerodrome while serving at the front and returned to the U. S. (1917); commissioned a CAPT, USAS, he remained in the U. S. during the course of the war; Private Pilot rating no. 2057 (1928). (CAPT, USAS.).

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Here's a nice addition for the Lafayette Escadrille collectors. This book has a "Buy It Now" for $10.99.

WWI-Airwar-Americans-Lafayette Escadrille-History-Wings
Warriors With Wings. The Story of the Lafayette Escadrille. 6 1/2 x 9 1/2. HARDBOUND. 207 Pages. Published by Bobbs-Merrill. Jablonski. FIRST EDITION. This Volume Presents the Saga of how American Volunteers serve as Fighter Pilots in Europe before the US enters the War. HEAVILY ILLUSTRATED. A LITTLE-KNOWN SUBJECT. Splendid Reference for the Military or Aviation Enthusiast. GREAT READING. Superb! HARD TO FIND. RARE. FINE Condition. NOTE: Moderate Wear on Back Part of Dust Cover. This is a USED Book. As Always, A Quality Product! A $27.95-29.95 Value. If You Can Find it -NO RESERVE- You'll be pleased. Buyer pays $4.00 Postage.

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These come up every so often... AU 7.95

FIRST OF THE FEW, Denis Winter Fighter Pilots WW1 HC EC
Existing studies of the Great war in the air fall for the most part into three categories- technical descriptions of the machinery, narrative sketches of a few aces or chronological compilations built around accounts of spectacular action.

In this study, Denis Winter attempts to go beyond these limited approaches and to describe the war of the ordinary fighter pilot from enlistment to demobilization. Having consulted most of the published memoirs and read widely in the archives of the Public Record Office, the Imperial War Museum and the RAF museum at Hendon, Denis Winter writes of the sort of men who became pilots, the stages by which they learnt their trade and their relationship with the machinery they manipulated. He describes the nature of their duties and analyses the technical qualities which were required for success in their execution. He studies too the mental dimension. How did the pilots think of their job? What did they think of their colleagues and their foe? What of their fears? In what way did they combat the trains of active service? He concludes by examining the unravelling after the war and the overall significance of the aerial war in which they had been participating. This insight into the first great air combat in history suggests that it was a greater significance than has hitherto been thought, killing as many of the participants, proportionately, as the war on the ground and inflicting perhaps even more stress on those involved.

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Yeates! A first edition. The cover looks a little beat up, but these can be pretty pricey. GBP 19.99

SCARCE V M YEATES Winged Victory 1934 1st/1st HB RFC
Publisher & Printing Details: Jonathan Cape, London, 1934. First edition, first impression hardback.

About the Book: There is no bitter snarl, nor self-pity in this classic novel about the air war of 1914-1918, based very largely on the author's experiences. Combat, loneliness, fatigue, fear, comradeship, women, excitement - all are built into a vigorous and authentic structure by one of the most valiant pilots of the then Royal Flying Corps. The hero is Tom Cundall (based loosely on the author’s friend, Henry Williamson) who flies with 46 Squadron over the Western Front.

This is an extremely rare title to find in its first edition, even in this condition. The book was re-issued later in 1934 with a foreword by Henry Williamson.

Condition: The light green cloth binding is in very poor condition, with heavy fraying to the spine and bumped corners. A previous owner has pasted articles about Amelia Earhart to the front and rear endpapers. However, the inner binding is secure and this book is perfectly readable. The pages are clean but with occasional foxing. A perfect candidate for rebinding.