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Air of Battle: A Pilot's Account of World War One
Willie Fry was a fighter pilot on the Western Front from 1915 to 1918.
Fry's vivid memoirs cover the Battle of the Somme and Passchendaele, painting a portrait of air warfare in primitive conditions, airmen flying machines of rudimentary simplicity and of men exposed and vulnerable to the elements as well as to enemy bullets. He presents the happy-go-lucky attitude of the airmen and the conscientiousness of ground crews never shirking their duty.
He takes us into officers’ messes and into the ‘on duty’ and ‘off duty’ routines of the flyers who came from widely different regiments of the army to launch the Royal Flying Corps. Ignoring the renown he won for himself in air battle, he gives vignettes of famous aces whom he knew — Albert Ball, McCudden and many others. His memoirs bring to life the years of the R.F.C. when the flyers were facing not only the enemy but the perils of conquering the air.
William Fry (Nov 1896 – 1992) has eleven aerial victories credited to his name. He flew in at least four different aircraft during his service. Fry married Katherine Mary Carrington in 1924. Having served in Egypt, Fry returned to the RAF to serve during World War II.
Fry's vivid memoirs cover the Battle of the Somme and Passchendaele, painting a portrait of air warfare in primitive conditions, airmen flying machines of rudimentary simplicity and of men exposed and vulnerable to the elements as well as to enemy bullets. He presents the happy-go-lucky attitude of the airmen and the conscientiousness of ground crews never shirking their duty.
He takes us into officers’ messes and into the ‘on duty’ and ‘off duty’ routines of the flyers who came from widely different regiments of the army to launch the Royal Flying Corps. Ignoring the renown he won for himself in air battle, he gives vignettes of famous aces whom he knew — Albert Ball, McCudden and many others. His memoirs bring to life the years of the R.F.C. when the flyers were facing not only the enemy but the perils of conquering the air.
William Fry (Nov 1896 – 1992) has eleven aerial victories credited to his name. He flew in at least four different aircraft during his service. Fry married Katherine Mary Carrington in 1924. Having served in Egypt, Fry returned to the RAF to serve during World War II.
195 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 7, 2016
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February 27, 2023
AIR OF BATTLE is the author's account of his experiences as a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) during World War I. (It was originally published in 1974, when Fry was nearly 80 years old. He would die in August 1992, age 95, one of the last living World War I aviators.)
Upon the outbreak of war in August 1914, William Fry was not quite 18 and working in a bank (for meager wages) in London. Eagerly he volunteered for service in the Army and after a spell of training, his unit (the London Rifle Brigade) was shipped to France, arriving there in November 1914. Within a short time, Fry's unit was involved in what later became known as the First Battle of Ypres, which stemmed the German drive to the English Channel and led to the trench warfare that would largely characterize ground combat on the Western Front for the remainder of the war. Fry would be one of the soldiers to experience first-hand the Christmas Truce of 1914 in which a number of British and German soldiers facing each other across the lines, would meet across no-man's-land on Christmas Day, sing carols, and suspend hostilities for 2 days. (The British high command frowned on this type of fraternization, which would not happen again in the war.)
By the spring of 1915, in response to a query made by a Member of Parliament about the number of underage soldiers (under 18 years of age) in France, Fry was one of 2 members of his unit who were sent back to the UK. Thereupon he applied on the sly for an officer's commission with the Somerset Light Infantry, was accepted, and spent the remainder of the year in training. That is, until December 1915, when Fry decided that it might be a good idea to join the Royal Flying Corps as a pilot or observer. He admits not to being enthusiastic about having to again face the mud and gore of the trenches. He had expressly requested to be trained as an observer. But somehow that request was ignored and Fry was put into a pilot training program. At that stage of the war, the RFC did not have a standardized flight training program. Training was a rather haphazard program in which flight instructors (most of them war-weary pilots who had seen extensive action in France) would take up a pilot trainee for a few flights in a two-seater aeroplane, maybe imparting to said trainee some sage advice as to how to fly the aeroplane. There were also, as Fry related, training courses in navigation, Morse Code, and a cursory introduction to the theory of flight and aircraft engines. From reading this section of the book, I gained a deep appreciation of the sheer guts any pilot trainee had to have in simply struggling to learn to fly. Some instructors were simply content to teach their charges enough flying simply to get the plane off the ground and land it safely. The prevailing expectation at that stage of the war was that the pilot trainee who survived his flight training would perfect his skills with a front-line unit in France. I was deeply impressed with the primitive nature of the training program for pilots, which typified the prevailing attitude among the RFC leadership to "teach them to fly and get them over to France ASAP."
Fry was assigned to a squadron in France in early summer 1916, flying the B.E.2c aeroplane nicknamed the "Quirk." It was a prewar aircraft that was easy to fly, but hardly suited for wartime operations. It had an unusual seating arrangement with the observer seated in the front seat (instead of the pilot) with the pilot sitting in the rear seat. Fry flew several bombing and reconnaissance missions above the lines and for some distance inside enemy territory. These were rather risky undertakings because it wasn't unusual for the B.E.2c to develop engine trouble at a very inopportune moment, which could lead to the crew being made to make a forced landing in either friendly or enemy territory. Plus, there was also the hazard of anti-aircraft fire and German fighters. In describing this stage of his wartime service, Fry comes across as a very self-effacing, modest person. In toto, he would serve at the Front with 3 squadrons (one of them a scout or fighter squadron) from June 1916 to February 1917. He considered himself one of the "lucky ones" because on average an RFC pilot at that time survived barely a week on active service in France. The air war was becoming more and more dangerous as tactics were developed and modified in response to the changing tempo of combat, and both sides were coming out with faster, more advanced, and better armed aircraft.
Fry's wartime experience is rather interesting because he went on to fly a variety of fighter planes in combat, which was not usual for an RFC (later Royal Air Force) fighter pilot in the war. He would also serve as a flight instructor in the UK and return to France in the latter part of 1917 with one of the few RFC fighter squadrons flying the SPAD, a robust and highly touted French-designed fighter plane that saw considerable action with French fighter units. He also shares with the reader much of what life at the Front was like, meeting some of the famous British, Canadian, and French fighter aces of the war.
By early 1918, Fry would be reassigned to another RFC unit, flying yet another fighter plane, the Sopwith Dolphin which was designed to be a solidly built aeroplane, suited for high attitude combat. That is, at heights above 15,000 ft. (Most aviators in World War I flew at high attitudes --- sometimes as high as 21,000 ft --- without oxygen, bundled up in heavy, bulky clothing. Some of them would smear their faces with whale oil in an effort to ward off the effects of extreme cold at those heights. Furthermore, Fry flew without a parachute, because parachutes were not issued to Allied pilots during the war. The higher command maintained that issuing pilots parachutes would disincentivize them from fighting to the utmost at the Front. Hence, no parachutes were allowed.)
Fry's war would end following a crash in late May 1918 after flying a mission over the lines. By then, he had been credited with shooting down 11 German planes in aerial combat.
For anyone wanting to get a real, tangible sense of what life at the Front (as well as among training and home based squadrons in the UK) was like for a combat aviator, AIR OF BATTLE is fantastic. Much of what Fry shares with the reader is informed by the logbook he kept during the war. There are also lots of photographs from Fry's wartime service that give added weight to what is a wonderful book.
Upon the outbreak of war in August 1914, William Fry was not quite 18 and working in a bank (for meager wages) in London. Eagerly he volunteered for service in the Army and after a spell of training, his unit (the London Rifle Brigade) was shipped to France, arriving there in November 1914. Within a short time, Fry's unit was involved in what later became known as the First Battle of Ypres, which stemmed the German drive to the English Channel and led to the trench warfare that would largely characterize ground combat on the Western Front for the remainder of the war. Fry would be one of the soldiers to experience first-hand the Christmas Truce of 1914 in which a number of British and German soldiers facing each other across the lines, would meet across no-man's-land on Christmas Day, sing carols, and suspend hostilities for 2 days. (The British high command frowned on this type of fraternization, which would not happen again in the war.)
By the spring of 1915, in response to a query made by a Member of Parliament about the number of underage soldiers (under 18 years of age) in France, Fry was one of 2 members of his unit who were sent back to the UK. Thereupon he applied on the sly for an officer's commission with the Somerset Light Infantry, was accepted, and spent the remainder of the year in training. That is, until December 1915, when Fry decided that it might be a good idea to join the Royal Flying Corps as a pilot or observer. He admits not to being enthusiastic about having to again face the mud and gore of the trenches. He had expressly requested to be trained as an observer. But somehow that request was ignored and Fry was put into a pilot training program. At that stage of the war, the RFC did not have a standardized flight training program. Training was a rather haphazard program in which flight instructors (most of them war-weary pilots who had seen extensive action in France) would take up a pilot trainee for a few flights in a two-seater aeroplane, maybe imparting to said trainee some sage advice as to how to fly the aeroplane. There were also, as Fry related, training courses in navigation, Morse Code, and a cursory introduction to the theory of flight and aircraft engines. From reading this section of the book, I gained a deep appreciation of the sheer guts any pilot trainee had to have in simply struggling to learn to fly. Some instructors were simply content to teach their charges enough flying simply to get the plane off the ground and land it safely. The prevailing expectation at that stage of the war was that the pilot trainee who survived his flight training would perfect his skills with a front-line unit in France. I was deeply impressed with the primitive nature of the training program for pilots, which typified the prevailing attitude among the RFC leadership to "teach them to fly and get them over to France ASAP."
Fry was assigned to a squadron in France in early summer 1916, flying the B.E.2c aeroplane nicknamed the "Quirk." It was a prewar aircraft that was easy to fly, but hardly suited for wartime operations. It had an unusual seating arrangement with the observer seated in the front seat (instead of the pilot) with the pilot sitting in the rear seat. Fry flew several bombing and reconnaissance missions above the lines and for some distance inside enemy territory. These were rather risky undertakings because it wasn't unusual for the B.E.2c to develop engine trouble at a very inopportune moment, which could lead to the crew being made to make a forced landing in either friendly or enemy territory. Plus, there was also the hazard of anti-aircraft fire and German fighters. In describing this stage of his wartime service, Fry comes across as a very self-effacing, modest person. In toto, he would serve at the Front with 3 squadrons (one of them a scout or fighter squadron) from June 1916 to February 1917. He considered himself one of the "lucky ones" because on average an RFC pilot at that time survived barely a week on active service in France. The air war was becoming more and more dangerous as tactics were developed and modified in response to the changing tempo of combat, and both sides were coming out with faster, more advanced, and better armed aircraft.
Fry's wartime experience is rather interesting because he went on to fly a variety of fighter planes in combat, which was not usual for an RFC (later Royal Air Force) fighter pilot in the war. He would also serve as a flight instructor in the UK and return to France in the latter part of 1917 with one of the few RFC fighter squadrons flying the SPAD, a robust and highly touted French-designed fighter plane that saw considerable action with French fighter units. He also shares with the reader much of what life at the Front was like, meeting some of the famous British, Canadian, and French fighter aces of the war.
By early 1918, Fry would be reassigned to another RFC unit, flying yet another fighter plane, the Sopwith Dolphin which was designed to be a solidly built aeroplane, suited for high attitude combat. That is, at heights above 15,000 ft. (Most aviators in World War I flew at high attitudes --- sometimes as high as 21,000 ft --- without oxygen, bundled up in heavy, bulky clothing. Some of them would smear their faces with whale oil in an effort to ward off the effects of extreme cold at those heights. Furthermore, Fry flew without a parachute, because parachutes were not issued to Allied pilots during the war. The higher command maintained that issuing pilots parachutes would disincentivize them from fighting to the utmost at the Front. Hence, no parachutes were allowed.)
Fry's war would end following a crash in late May 1918 after flying a mission over the lines. By then, he had been credited with shooting down 11 German planes in aerial combat.
For anyone wanting to get a real, tangible sense of what life at the Front (as well as among training and home based squadrons in the UK) was like for a combat aviator, AIR OF BATTLE is fantastic. Much of what Fry shares with the reader is informed by the logbook he kept during the war. There are also lots of photographs from Fry's wartime service that give added weight to what is a wonderful book.
October 8, 2020
Squadron Leader William Mayes Fry was a World War I Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force fighter ace. He was credited with eleven aerial victories, piloting no fewer than four different types of fighter aircraft.
Fry enlisted in the army underage and made it all the way to the trenches before being sent home. Once back in England and of age, he tried to become an aerial observer and ended up training to be a pilot. Failing the mechanical part of the training and risking washing out of the program, he was saved by new orders. Fry records all his wartime experience in a straightforward manner reporting the facts and experiences without added emotions or exaggeration. He, also, was also one of the lucky ones despite many mishaps, he survived the war and lived to be ninety-five.
For those who read WWI history, especially the air war, most of this book seemed very familiar. There were a few times in the reading that I thought I have read this before. I know I read this before. As it turns out, I did read some of these stories before. Fry's detailed account of the air war is perhaps one of the most complete and well-written memoirs that have survived. It is often quoted and sourced in WWI aviation histories. The writing style and storytelling make this book hard to put down. As a history, it is hard to beat. A remarkable read.
Fry enlisted in the army underage and made it all the way to the trenches before being sent home. Once back in England and of age, he tried to become an aerial observer and ended up training to be a pilot. Failing the mechanical part of the training and risking washing out of the program, he was saved by new orders. Fry records all his wartime experience in a straightforward manner reporting the facts and experiences without added emotions or exaggeration. He, also, was also one of the lucky ones despite many mishaps, he survived the war and lived to be ninety-five.
For those who read WWI history, especially the air war, most of this book seemed very familiar. There were a few times in the reading that I thought I have read this before. I know I read this before. As it turns out, I did read some of these stories before. Fry's detailed account of the air war is perhaps one of the most complete and well-written memoirs that have survived. It is often quoted and sourced in WWI aviation histories. The writing style and storytelling make this book hard to put down. As a history, it is hard to beat. A remarkable read.
October 12, 2016
What a unique look into the first world war from the viewpoint of a heroic airplane pilot who took matters into his own hands to join the air force which as it turns out ended up saving his life in the long run.
I really enjoyed the flow of his writing, found the descriptions to be sufficient enough to shape a picture in my mind that would resemble actual photographs when I looked them up, but not too much so as to become wearisome and irk me. The fact that William Fry's actual flight log and the official documentation of the air force could be cross referenced for both clarity and supporting evidence was well utilized. I actually found myself wanting to see hard copies of both.
It is incredible to see this part of history from the air and one that I feel more should read. It would be a great addition to history classes. When you consider the ages of most of the airmen, how little training they actually received especially towards the end of the war, it is amazing that they all didn't perish. Wing Commander William Fry goes into detail about many aspects of the day to day life in the air force and the infantry alike. I am in awe of his strength and fortitude and am incredibly grateful that he wrote this book.
I think it would be fascinating to have a group of young adults the age of the typical man in the army, navy and air force during the war read this. if the group could then get together and discuss the experiences. How would today's generation react under similar situation and conditions. What would the outcome have been?
I would suggest that the publisher have an editor go through Air of Battle at least one more time to clean up the typos, grammatical errors and such. As someone who finds these types of blunders distracting, I found it annoying. More than I would expect from a novel that an editor has gone over.
Endeavour Press granted me permission to read this novel via Net Galley. My review was not influenced in any way by the publisher or anyone else. It is my honest opinion of what I read.
I really enjoyed the flow of his writing, found the descriptions to be sufficient enough to shape a picture in my mind that would resemble actual photographs when I looked them up, but not too much so as to become wearisome and irk me. The fact that William Fry's actual flight log and the official documentation of the air force could be cross referenced for both clarity and supporting evidence was well utilized. I actually found myself wanting to see hard copies of both.
It is incredible to see this part of history from the air and one that I feel more should read. It would be a great addition to history classes. When you consider the ages of most of the airmen, how little training they actually received especially towards the end of the war, it is amazing that they all didn't perish. Wing Commander William Fry goes into detail about many aspects of the day to day life in the air force and the infantry alike. I am in awe of his strength and fortitude and am incredibly grateful that he wrote this book.
I think it would be fascinating to have a group of young adults the age of the typical man in the army, navy and air force during the war read this. if the group could then get together and discuss the experiences. How would today's generation react under similar situation and conditions. What would the outcome have been?
I would suggest that the publisher have an editor go through Air of Battle at least one more time to clean up the typos, grammatical errors and such. As someone who finds these types of blunders distracting, I found it annoying. More than I would expect from a novel that an editor has gone over.
Endeavour Press granted me permission to read this novel via Net Galley. My review was not influenced in any way by the publisher or anyone else. It is my honest opinion of what I read.
July 3, 2016
I received a free copy via Netgalley in exchange for a honest review.
This gives a wonderful insight of life at the start of the first world war and the early days of flying in that war.
How the pilots and observers were used for experimenting as planes and weapons altered at such a fast pace.
This gives a wonderful insight of life at the start of the first world war and the early days of flying in that war.
How the pilots and observers were used for experimenting as planes and weapons altered at such a fast pace.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews