Sagittarius Rising

Sent to France with the Royal Flying Corps at just 17, and later a member of the famous 56 Squadron, Cecil Lewis was an illustrious and passionate fighter pilot of World War I, described by Bernard Shaw in 1935 as "a thinker, a master of words, and a bit of a poet." In this vivid and spirited account the author evocatively sets his love of the skies and flying against his bitter experience of the horrors of war, as we follow his progress from France and the battlefields of the Somme, to his pioneering defense of London against deadly nighttime raids.

User reviews

LibraryThing member gibbon

"Until you have sat at 3,000 feet with nothing between you and the ground but a bit of plywood you don't know what fear is like." Harvey Jaggs, ex-RFC.

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LibraryThing member xenchu

This is a book about a type of flying that is long long gone, except for a few that keep a form of it alive. It was a time when flying was only a dozen years old. When flying machines were cloth, wood and an engine; when instruments were almost nonexistent and death was everywhere.

This writing is

worth your time; the writing, I think, is beautiful. It is a story of youth, daring and danger written by poetic teenager who fought in a terrible war.

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LibraryThing member douboy50

I gave this book 5 stars more for the manner in which it was written, than for the "what" that was written. Later in the book I saw that the author claims to some extent to be a poet. No wonder his prose is so engaging! Well written. I have read many books on the air war in WWI. This one stands out

because the author deals in many cases with his feelings and perceptions (as well as those of others), not merely the personal experiences of combat and loss. My favorite part of the book is at the end. Here he covers his experiences in China after the war (1920-1921), where is contracted as an instructor for the start-up of the Chinese Air Force. His view of the Chinese culture is most interesting and heart felt. He recognizes the beginning of the shift away from the traditional culture toward that of acceptance of the Western culture. Well done.

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LibraryThing member Chris_El

Autobiography of a WWI British pilot. He tends to wax poetical and when he describes flying it makes you long to take flight and soar through the clouds free of everything.

Some good history about the war from the flying perspective. He lived thru some thick action and once returned from a long

weekend away to find most of his fellow airmen killed. He was one of the lucky few who survived. He joined at 17 and I think served for four years.

He spends a little bit of time after the main of the book talking about the time he spent in China after the war trying to help them learn to fly. He describes the way non-Chinese society segregated themselves and often looked down on the Chinese. He found it difficult to teach them, in a large part due to the language barrier.

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LibraryThing member jamespurcell

Excellent WW1 flying memoir. Good prose, interesting personal insights and enough of the technical aspects of flying and air warfare above a horrific ground war to maintain interest. Change out the equipment and it would easily emulate the WW2 Battle of Britain as fought by similar young men with a

cavalier attitude and aristocratic sangfroid.

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