Sagittarius Rising

One of the classics of World War I literature, and generally considered one of the finest air memoirs of the war, Sagittarius Rising brings to life the illustrious career of the passionate fighter pilot once described by Bernard Shaw as "a thinker, a master of words, and a bit of a poet". At a time when flight was still in its infancy Cecil Lewis was amongst the brave, pioneering pilots who took to the skies during the First World War to become the world's first aces. Sent to France aged just seventeen he soon found himself flying in combat over the smoking battlefields of the Somme. Later selected to join the famous 56 Squadron, he went on to duel with the formidable Richthofen and his Circus, and was to witness Albert Ball disappear into a cloud never to be seen again. In this engaging and spirited account Lewis vividly sets his love of the skies and flying against his bitter experience of the horror and futility of the ground war that played itself out beneath him. Paralleling his own story, he evokes the stories of the men who fought alongside him and the machines they fought in, together with sharply observed scenes from everyday civilian life that persisted in spite of the raging war. Beautifully written and by turns horrifying, moving, exhilarating and lyrical, this is a stirring tribute to the remarkable young men who daily risked their lives in the golden age of aerial combat, and to all those who courageously fought in the trenches of the Western Front. Book jacket.Lewis, Cecil is the author of 'Sagittarius Rising', published 1991 under ISBN 9780809496006 and ISBN 0809496003.