"I chose the Sky" Topic

Review by Mark Barnes.

"Leonard ‘Tich' Rochford achieved twenty-nine victories as a fighter pilot during the Great War. His genuinely lovely account of his war service was first published in 1977, quite late by many standards, but the old mantra better late than never applies. He passed away in 1986. He served with No3 Naval Air Squadron that became No203 Squadron RAF when the force was founded in April 1918. He fly a range of aircraft, but rather appropriately for the classic image of a fighter pilot; it was in a Sopwith Camel that he wreaked most of the havoc credited to him.

Grub Street are to be applauded for the deft handling of biographies like this one. They don't mess with the text or make it acceptable to a modern audience and as such these books are wholly authentic. I was so pleased that similar volume landed on my doormat on the day I finished reading this gem. These books are pure gold…"
Full review here
link

Amicalement
Armand

Thanks for the heads up, Armand. I've ordered the hardback. (Why is the Kindle more expensive? It makes no sense….)

And I just finished it. Great book. One of the best. I take up a new autobiographical memoir hoping for technical details. And "I Chose the Sky" is gratifyingly replete in them.

I wanted to know about rotary engines and throttles and blip switches, whether or not rotaries used throttles at all -- because the designer of the rules that we play said "no throttles", and I always doubted this because of some things that I had read, e.g. Arthur Gould Lee describing how he "throttled back" his Pup until he could hear the artillery shot below. But nothing conclusive. Now, I know: throttles were the norm in Pups and Camels if not all rotaries. The anecdotal mention of throttles and using them to control revs, and the sound of engines under "full throttle" or "throttled back", are numerous and conclusive throughout the book.

I wanted to know details about Camel performance. And Rochford supplied the "wicked kick to the right when airborne" comment. And the fact that in flying Camels for hundreds of hours he was never outclimbed by a German machine, and none were more maneuverable. But on the flat and in a dive a few times he noticed German machines pulling away from him. He compared BR1 Bentley, Le Rhone and Clerget engines, and supplied the detail that Camel squadrons were entirely equipped with one or the other. There was never a mixed engine squadron.

The guy was a mixture of concern and balls. On one occasion when a mission was washed out because of encountering fog, he refused to drop his bombs in Allied territory before attempting to land. He approached a random field and started to land. Then noticed a line of trees through the mist at the far end and he was overshooting. So he "opened throttle" (one of the many uses of throttle references) and "just cleared those trees." He went around again and overshot again. "The fog was now so thick that I just had to make a landing on this attempt. Fortunately it was successful and my Camel came to rest only a few feet from the edge of a gravel pit about 50 feet deep."(!)

Another interesting anecdote was a bombing mission of Camels, SE5s and Bristol Fighters, with the two single-seat squadrons carrying the bombs and the Brisfits supplying the escort!

There are lots of interesting anecdotes scattered throughout the book, some tragic, some amusing, some both. His assessment of pilots who died in service is often touching.

Rochford's "decisive" combats included 27 such claims in his combat reports. In the Harleyford "Aces" book, Rochford's score is given as 12 confirmed victories.

He considered his two years of active combat service among the happiest of his life. And late in the war when his squadron commander noticed from the records that "Tich" had been flying without any home leave for a long time, he suggested that leave would be a good thing. And Rochford objected and said that he was enjoying his combat flying as much as he ever had. He stayed. His commander said, "Alright, Tich, but just let me know whenever you feel you've had enough."