An Airman's Wife: A True Story of Lovers Separated by War

by Aimée McHardy

‘I want him to fly over the edge of the Downs and in at my bedroom window. I want to kiss his mouth.’ So wrote Aimée McHardy of her fighter pilot lover William Bond in 1917. The two enjoyed a racy and passionate life together long before they were married and Aimée speaks of their prewar vagabond existence which included a flat in the Latin Quarter of Paris, a cottage on the Seine and winters in St. Moritz. But then war intervened and Bill went to serve on the Western Front from where, to the ever present sound of gun fire, hardly a day went by without him writing to his sweetheart. Letters of unconditional love which also described in detail his service life and experiences. And Aimée replied in kind.

By now Bill was a captain and an ace and when, tragically, he was taken from her one July day, she completed her book about their extraordinary love affair as he had urged her to do. It was first published in 1918, hailed as the period classic that it is, and then disappeared without trace, as indeed did Aimée.

Reissued here in paperback, with helpful annotations, it is as readable and moving today as it was then.

320 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2005

Reviews

[KOMET · Rating 5 out of 5]

Originally published in 1918, "AN AIRMAN'S WIFE" is a poignant memoir centered around the author and her husband, a fighter pilot in Britain's Royal Flying Corps (RFC), whose marriage of kindred spirits was fated to be cruelly cut short.

[Suzanne Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

No less poignant than when it was first written. You were willing him to get through.
Despite the foreword saying nothing more was known of Aimee afterward the joys of the internet have changed that. She remarried to an author/playwright and together they collaborated on several successful West End shows. After his death in 1936 she continued to write on her own for films, theatre and television. She died in Brighton in 1981 aged 94.