Pilots are almost by nature individualists, and the First World War gave these men the opportunity to let their extrovert personalities have free rein. This took many forms: wild and riotous living, hair-raising stunt flying, a constant attempt to debunk authority, 'brass hats' in particular, and last but not least the extraordinary private markings of their aeroplanes. The Germans had a penchant for bright, regular patterns over large areas of their machines; the Russians for the macabre; the Italians for iridescent paint and fanciful animals; the French for names and animals; the British for overall gaudy paint schemes if they could get away with it; and the Americans for comic figures. This is necessarily oversimplified, for such a list can be neither exclusive nor comprehensive, but gives an idea of the sort of men who flew these early warplanes. Even if the exercise of this individualism did not stretch over the whole machine, most of the prominent pilots, with the exception of the British, managed to add small but distinctive personal and unit markings.

This article is located in the History of the First World War Volume 6 (REF D522 .H58 1969 V.6).