Lee, Arthur Gould
No Parachute
 Harper & Row
New York
1970

234 pp

Estimated Value: $9 - $14

Author Gould Lee arrived at RFC 46 Squadron in May 1917, just after "Bloody April", when the squadron had just suffered horrendous losses and been recently been re-equipped with Sopwith Scouts (they had previously been flying two-seat Nieuport machines).   Originally published in 1970, this book is drawn from a collection of letters (as well as some journal entries) that the author wrote home to his young wife in England.  What follows is one of the best accounts of the air war ever written.  Lee did a momentous job describing the daily life of a scout pilot at the time, and his narrative of his ten months at the front is breathtakingly vivid.

RELATED READING  

1934  Winged Victory   Yeates, V. M.

1965  Squadron 44 (Fiction)  Arch Whitehouse

1967  The Fledgling  Arch Whitehouse

1968  Sopwith Scout 7309   Taylor, Sir Gordon

1970  Playboy Squadron (Fiction)  Arch Whitehouse

1972  I Flew A Camel   Kinney, Lt. Curtis, R.A.F.

1990  Above The Trenches   Shores, Franks & Guest

1991  Sopwith Fighters In Action  Cooksley, Peter G.

1995  The Royal Flying Corp In France   Barker, Ralph