Flying Aces of World War 1

Gene Gurney’s Flying Aces of World War I was one of the first history books I read growing up. As a boy, I was gripped by the stories of pilots in rickety planes dueling to death over the trenches of the Western Front, and the memory of their exploits stayed with me. Reading it again brought back

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fond recollections of pouring over its pages on my elementary school’s playground, but its limits also stood out in a way that they had not to me as a child. The book is narrower than its title suggests, offering potted biographies of eight pilots who served on the Western Front. Two of the pilots are Americans and a third is a Franco-American pilot; while this isn't surprising given its intended audience it does mean that the portrayal of the air war is a little skewed. Nevertheless, Gurney succeeds in writing an entertaining work that captures the excitement of air combat at that time, one that is a good starting point for young readers seeking to learn about the war and the men who waged it.

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