Over and Above was first published in 1919 soon after John Everard
Gurdon, aged just twenty, had been invalided out of the RAF following a
brief but incident-filled stint as a flyer on the Western Front.
Piloting the Bristol F.2b with 22 Squadron, his first victory was on 2
April 1918 and by 13 August he had bagged his twenty-eighth. In between
those dates Gurdon flew with gusto and élan, his exploits attracting the
attention of such eminent fighter aces as James McCudden. Over and Above
is Gurdon's first and best book, repeatedly reprinted for two decades,
variously titled Winged Warriors or Wings of Death. Billed as a novel,
it is not so much that as a fictionalised account of his own service
flying career, with names changed, incidents rearranged. True, it tells
of 'exciting raids over enemy lines and towns, desperate fights against
fearful odds, chivalry shown to an unchivalrous foe...' but the
narrative turns darker as men become wearier, new comrades arrive and
are killed, and those who remain try to hold onto meaning in
increasingly unintelligible circumstances, a mirror to Gurdon's own
experiences. Written in the style of the era and by and for a class
which put great store in maintaining a slangy, backslapping
cheerfulness, no matter how grim things were, with chums wishing each
other 'beaucoup Huns' before embarking on a 'show' in 'beastly' weather,
this book is a classic to rank with Winged Victory by V M Yeates, and
which should never have been out of print. This new edition retains
exactly the original script but has been updated with an introduction by
John Gurdon's granddaughter Camilla Gurdon Blakeley and an extended
illustrated appendix by renowned historian Norman Franks.
