No Empty Chairs: The Short and Heroic Lives of the Young Aviators Who Fought and Died in the First World War

In the spring of 1917, when the world's first great air war was at its height, the British squadrons were losing 200 pilots a month, and British pilot life expectancy was eleven days. The aeroplanes the pilots flew were rudimentary open-cockpit biplanes, with a single machine bolted to the wood and fabric wing intended for shooting down the equally frail German planes. This book tells the story of that first great air war, illustrating its devastating emotional impact on the participants and their families in a narrative enriched by the private correspondence that flowed between them, and diaries, reports and interviews. The aerial combat tactics that the sacrifices of those First World War aviators created became so tactically effective that they were used to deadly effect in the Second World War.