Laugh or Fly: The Air War on the Western Front 1914–1918

Pen & Sword, 2024

By Peter Hart and Gary Bain

Reviewed by David F. Beer

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be….
Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew
From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue.

Tennyson, “Locksley Hall,” 1842

Tennyson’s poetic vision (almost exactly a century before the Battle of Britain) would also have applied to the air war of 1914–1918, as is vividly shown in the material Peter Hart and Gary Bain present in this highly informative book. In 12 chapters, the authors take us from the first days of aerial combat, when it was primarily a case of the blind leading the blind, to the final day of victory, when Lt Leslie Semple “took considerable pleasure in carrying out his last bombing raid on the night of 10 November 1918” (p. 229). He was even more gratified when he found he was the last Great War pilot to drop bombs on enemy territory.

The details of WWI aircraft, air and ground crews, combat, life, and death in this book are convincing because they are entirely taken from the words of the men involved. Hart and Bain have thoroughly trawled numerous sources, including the Imperial War Museum, the RAF Museum, letters, diaries, memoirs, and dozens of books. They have brought us the actual lives, thoughts, and fears of the “men in their flying machines” who experienced the thrills and terrors of flight plus the pleasures and security of a relatively safe social life on the ground. Pilots, observers, air gunners, mechanics, and other ground personnel all have their say in this panoramic look at the people who made up the RFC and then the RAF from 1914 to 1918.

Nobody was ready for an air war in 1914, and it took a little time before the idea that one could get in an airplane and fly off to shoot down an enemy with a pistol was discarded. Soon the intricacies of combat flying had to be given due attention with serious study and coursework:

[Cadets] studied the inner mysteries of aero engines, the complexities of airframes and rigging, and the working of flying instruments. They also had to master simple navigation and meteorology, wireless signalling and Morse code; the basics of aerial photography and artillery observation; and finally, an introduction to armaments including the Vickers machine gun, the Lewis gun and bombs. This was a heavy workload for any young man, and some faltered (p. 30).

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Careful training paid off as pilots became more skilled—and crafty. In reading Laugh or Fly you will fly with aircrew in various types of airplanes over every major and minor battle fought by the British on the Western Front from 1914 to 1918. You will read of their intimate fears, skills, and triumphs, and of the realities of loss after grueling air battles:

The few of us who were left sat down at mess that night and cried like children as we looked around at the vacant chairs. In two days, we lost fourteen men out of a complement for twenty-seven. As I write the names of my late comrades, it is hard to believe that they are dead. With me, they set out in possession of life and glorious health—within an hour or so they were charred and mangled remains. (p. 217).

Thus aerial combat resulted in the “ghastly dew" of Tennyson’s poetic vision of 1842, as it still does today. The people who fly, kill, and die are indeed a breed apart—as Peter Hart and Gary Bain well illustrate in this outstanding collection of personal accounts from the men who flew dubious aircraft in the Great War.

David F. Beer