First to Fly: The Story of the Lafayette Escadrille, the American Heroes Who Flew For France in World War I

First to Fly: The Story of the Lafayette Escadrille, the American Heroes Who Flew For France in World War I deserves points for being one of the most succinct World War I books I've read. It is the story of Americans fighting in the war prior to the U.S.'s entry in 1917. Specifically, it's a brief history of the Lafayette Escadrille, or the French army's flight squadron that was comprised almost entirely of Americans. (In that sense, it is complementary to Over the Top, which is the memoir of an American fighting with British forces in the trenches.)

Author Charles Bracelen Flood does a great job of presenting not only, as I mentioned, an incredibly succinct rendering of the entire war, but especially of creating full-bodied portraits of each of the men who served in the Lafayette Escadrille. For what it's worth, Bert Hall and Raoul Lufbery particularly stand out.

Flood also brings home the reality of wartime flight, which was both cold and terrifying, seeing as it was conducted from open cockpits. As he notes, the war began a mere decade after the Wright Brothers took to the air. I was actually surprised at what a quick read this was, particularly in comparison to so many other war-related books. I enjoyed that it focused on a relatively obscure part of the war, given that this was a war of trenches, but the development of which was arguably the most important warfare advancement since the invention of the wheel. An excellent and engaging read - and I'll be adding Bert Hall's memoir, En L'Air, to my reading list.