Little more than ten years after the first powered flight, aircraft were pressed into service in World War I. The romance of aviation had a remarkable grip on the public imagination, propaganda focusing on gallant air 'aces' who become national heroes. The reality was horribly different. Some 50,000 aircrew died in World War I. Marked for Death explored the brutal truths of wartime aviation : of flimsy planes and unprotected pilots ; of burning nineteen-year-olds falling screaming to their deaths ; of pilots blinded by the entrails of their observers. James Hamilton-Paterson also reveals how four years of war produced profound changes both in the aircraft themselves and in military attitudes and strategy. By 1918 it was widely accepted that domination of the air above the battlefield was crucial to military success, a realization that would change the nature of warfare forever. -- amazon.com

Introduction -- Air war and the state -- Why biplanes? -- Armed to the teeth -- Combat and other missions -- The making of a flying man -- How they lived -- Aces -- Airmen and medics -- Parachutes and fatalism -- Home defence -- Balkans and Mesopotamia -- Postscript -- Chronology of the first air war -- Note on the classification of aircraft types.