Posted a brief review of a book "The Unsubstantial Air, American Fliers in the First World War," on my blog (Games of Zorro in Miniature) and on my ZorroGames Facebook acount.
Here is the core:
If there ever was any history of my being a "blue blood" it would not be aristocracy but from my USAF years and love of aerial warfare history. Like the Marines in my family I find my 7 plus years of service left an invisible watermark in my being.
In that light I want to share with anyone reading a new book I just read. To simplify things I am going to post what I wrote on Facebook:
Yesterday at church I was loaned a book, "The Unsubstantial Air, American Fliers in the First World War," by Samuel Hynes.
I finished it this morning before 0630 hours.
Yea, that good.
Yes it is about the Squadrons, the first aerial war, training, tactics, heroism but it is more than just a military history. It is about the pilots (pursuit, bomber, the innocuous sounding role of 'observation,') the challenges of flying (much less fighting) those early machines, and what kinds of people are drawn to a new form of testing of the mind, body, and soul of a person in the "Unsubstantial Air" [the page before the contents has a quote from King Lear – "Welcome, then,/Thou unsubstantial air that I embrace; The wretch that thou has blown unto the worst/Owes nothing to thy blasts," that catches the spirit of the experiences you are about to read.] It is about people in a new and terrible and yet inspiring world that is changing while they are living it, a lot like today and the world we are living in.
In these centennial years remembering (and yes celebrating the humans in the maws of "The Great War") what we now call World War I this is a timely work that perhaps only a combat pilot (Samuel Hynes was a Marine aviator in World War II) can write to try and translate the experience to those of us who don't fly to fight.
