If the Wright brothers' 1903 flights in Kitty Hawk marked the birth of
aviation, World War I can be called its violent adolescence--a brief but
bloody era that completely changed the way planes were designed,
fabricated, and flown. The war forged an industry that would redefine
transportation and warfare for future generations. In First to Fly,
lauded historian Charles Bracelen Flood tells the story of the men who
were at the forefront of that revolution: the daredevil Americans of the
Lafayette Escadrille, who flew in French planes, wore French uniforms,
and showed the world an American brand of heroism before the United
States entered the Great War.
As citizens of a neutral nation from 1914 to early 1917, Americans were
prohibited from serving in a foreign army, but many brave young souls
soon made their way into European battle zones: as ambulance drivers,
nurses, and more dangerously, as soldiers in the French Foreign Legion.
It was partly from the ranks of the latter group, and with the
sponsorship of an expat American surgeon and a Vanderbilt, that the
Lafayette Escadrille was formed in 1916 as the first and only
all-American squadron in the French Air Service. Flying rudimentary
planes, against one-in-three odds of being killed, these fearless young
men gathered reconnaissance and shot down enemy aircraft, participated
in the Battle of Verdun and faced off with the Red Baron, dueling across
the war-torn skies like modern knights on horseback.
Drawing on rarely seen primary sources, Flood chronicles the startling
success of that intrepid band, and gives a compelling look at the rise
of aviation and a new era of warfare.
