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This story of the Harrison and Mansfield families and a handful of
fictional pilots draws energy from many sources. For a general
context of the war, especially the political and social culture
in which human beings lived and died, I appreciate Page Smith’s
masterful, America Enters The World.
Equally concerned with stories of human beings in crisis, Martin
Gilbert’s,
The First World War, leads the reader
from Olympian decisions to the trenches. The six-volume set of True
Stories of the Great War,
edited by France Miller in 1918, offers eye witness accounts that
convey the tone of the period. Paul Fussell’s, The
Great War and Modern Memory brilliantly recaptures
that tone as if to remind us in the early 21st Century that most
men and women a hundred years ago saw their world through very
different lenses. For critical biographic and battle facts, Anthony
Bruce’s, An Illustrated
Companion to the First World War is invaluable. Cameron’s
Year of Decision: 1916 riveted my attention
on the short-term pressures that confronted political and military
leaders during that year of slaughter. For a balanced perspective
on those casualties, I was grateful for John Terraine’s,
The Smoke and The Fire, Myths and Anti-myths of War (1861-1945). The novel focuses on the first battle of the Somme in the last six months of 1916. Macdonald’s, The Somme was my general guide, greater details of terrain and pictures being provided by The Somme, Volume I, the Michelin Guide to the Battlefield. Although essential to an understanding of the battlefield, neither book begins to cover the context of the air campaign, a unique six-month period of history when relatively powerful flying machines first tested a human being’s ability to endure unprecedented emotional and physical challenges from weather, frail technology and anxiety.
Three excellent books provide a superb overview of that campaign:
The Great War in The Air (John Morrow), The
First Air War (Lee
Kennett) and The First Air Campaign (Lawson).
Liddle’s, The
Airman’s War, 1914-1918 offers details about
the life of air crews and pilots in squadrons while Maurice Baring’s
famous, Flying Corps Headquarters, 1914-1918 gives
the headquarters perspective. For details about key historical
figures in that famous air campaign, I quickly became obsessed
with a rich harvest of memoirs and biographies, especially the
biographies of Arthur Balfour (Dugdale), Trenchard (Boyle) and
Albert Ball (Bowyer) Foremost among collections are stories in Cross
and Cockade International,
including a fine history of 60 Squadron, and Over
The Front, the
quarterly journal of the League of World War
One Aviation Historians.
The Vintage Aviation Library series, including Sixty
Squadron, R.A.F, (1916-1919) (Captain A.J.L.Scott), An
Airman’s
Outings (Alan Bott) and Flying
Fury, Five Years in The Royal Flying Corps (James
McCudden, VC) added further depth. Saggitarius
Rising by Lewis offers a very
detailed account of a pilot’s experience at the front. Wings
Over The Somme, 1916-1918 (Gwilym Lewis) is a revealing
collection of letters. Airfields
and Airmen (Somme) (Mike O’Connor) provide
photos and maps. Fictional accounts by eye witnesses offer penetrating examinations
of the war in ways that no other genre of literature could provide.
Fiction of The First World War, A Study (George Parfitt) is an
excellent summary. Books like Death
in The Air, No Parachute, The Blue Max, Hawker’s War, and especially Winged
Victory (Yeates) are essential yeast for a student’s empathy
for the men and women of those times. The airplane is such an important ingredient in the novel that I assembled a
small library on World War I aircraft. The best ready reference on fighters is
Fighter Aircraft of the 1914-1918 War by Lamberton. Pilot stress is a unifying theme in the story. It began in training
when a student pilot’s senses were assaulted by noise, air
pressure, g-forces, cold, the smell of castor oil, nausea and the
inescapable vibration and sound of the engine. The best description
of those forces is available in Colonel Steven Ruffin’s, Flying In
The Great War: Rx For Misery, in Over
The Front. Physical pain and
discomfort were the least of a pilot’s worries. The mental
and physical exhaustion of 60 Squadron pilots by the end of the
First Somme Campaign in November, 1916, warned commanders and doctors
that there were limits to the stress that “scout” pilots
could endure. Parts III, IV and V of the story examine the insidious
process by which many pilots suffered the onset, consequences and
(occasional) recovery from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD),
labeled neurasthenia and “shell
shock” in World War I. Too many ignorant commanders accused
victims of PTSD of cowardice even as sensory overload and inescapable
stress drained their physical and emotional vitality. I am grateful
to Lt. Col. David Grossman’s
book, On Killing for clarifying the subject. The
Ace Factor by
Mike Spick provides ample precedent for my fictional David Harrison’s
use of his sixth sense in air combat. In World War I, many pilots
called that gift the pilot’s “inner
eye.” Today it’s called “situational awareness.” To give that skill a wider context, I drew on a rich literature
about the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), founded in England
in 1882. For a contemporaneous exploration of the SPR’s exploration of precognition and “cross correspondence,” I
drew on The Future and Beyond by H.F. Saltmarsh, recently republished by Hampton
Roads in 2004. The Survival of Human Personality
After Bodily Death (Myers) is
a must for those who would like to gain greater insight into the SPR’s
collective wisdom at that time. Sir Oliver Lodge’s biography of his son,
Raymond, offers a personal validation of Myers’ thesis. Former Prime Minister Arthur Balfour was one of the SPR’s active members,
as was his brother, Gerald. From a reading of Balfour’s memoirs and biographies,
I have tried to capture his attitudes as he tried to help David Harrison find
a working reconciliation between the air war’s assault on
his senses and his inner (spiritual) development.
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