Author Woolley is the son of one of the pilots in the 95th Aero Squadron, America’s first pursuit squadron, who fought alongside Rickenbacker, Lufbery, Quentin Roosevelt and others. He set out to discover more about his father’s war after his death in 1962, by talking to the remaining survivors and their relatives, and by drawing on voluminous correspondence and many photographs. On the whole he has succeeded in painting a vivid and interesting picture both of the actions fought, the shortcomings of the original equipment, and the daily domestic life in an American Squadron in World War I. Before that, he was a volunteer ambulance driver in France, and that too is a very interesting part of the book. I always have to stifle my irritation on being told that World War I lasted from 1917-1918, that the main allied artillery piece was the French 75, and that the Legion d’Honneur, the ‘Blue Max’ and the Victoria Cross are equivalent decorations. Not to mention that von Richthofen’s Squadron were known as the ‘Scarlet Scouts’ (the word ‘Circus’ does not appear in this book).

However, once I had decided (yet again) that the British and Americans are divided forever by using a common language, I enjoyed this book greatly. I particularly liked the photographs many of which seem to have come straight of the family album, and the retrospective honesty of everyone interviewed; people who were cowards are named, people who were just stupid likewise. I am left thinking how many of these young men would have survived for much longer if Pershing had not so obstinately insisted that they had nothing to learn from the Allies, and that they had to go into battle alone as Americans.