First published in 1936, this book is possibly the greatest aviation work to emanate from World War I. It is presented again entirely as the original, with the addition of a foreword written by the author in 1993.

Sent to France at the age of 17, Lewis was in the famous 56 Squadron and in the thick of their aerial fighting. He describes his love of flying and his hatred of the futility of war in a way that Bernard Shaw called the work of a ‘thinker, a master of words, and a bit of a poet’.

This must be on everybody’s shelf.