Fighting the Flying Circus: The Memoirs of America's Greatest Ace

1918.

The tides of war are turning. America enters the air and bullets cut living streaks of fire into the enemy.

Eddie Rickenbacker's WWI memoirs were first published in 1919 and reveal the bravery of men leaping into dangerous contraptions 15,000 feet above the Earth, fighting for their cause and fighting for life.

Over the misty, blood-stained fields of France Eddie Rickenbacker, ‘Rick’, takes us from his tentative, rookie steps aboard his plane during reconnaissance over enemy lines, through to the last victory of the Great War.

His initial elation and fear as enemy squadrons hurtle past and artillery guns singe the air are soon tempered with experience and, after the disappearance of Captain Jimmy Hall, Rick must take command of his squadron himself.

Rick flies on the new and experimental wings at the cutting edge of the Great War. Lessons are learned through victories and losses and men, comrades and captains, sadly lost.

Ultimately, Rick’s 94th regiment ended the war in France with the highest number of air victories of any American squadron, earning him the Medal of Honour.

These memoirs tell that tale from the humble beginnings. Men survive on a wing and a prayer, unable to distinguish an enemy’s colours from an ally’s. As death and destruction plough through France’s landscape below and an unforgiving enemy stalks the skies, Rick’s "Hat-in-the-Ring" Squadron are pushed to extremes unimagined prior to this conflict.

Filled with technical insights and dramatic revelations, this is a tense and exciting account from the eyes of a celebrated and revered WWI American fighter pilot witnessing the trials and triumphs of the blistering skies.

Eddie Rickenbacker (1890 - 1973) was one of the world’s top racing car drivers before enlisting with the U.S. Army upon their entrance into the Great War in 1917. By September 1918 he had become America’s most successful fighter ace with 26 aerial victories, receiving the Medal of Honour and the adulation of his countrymen and allies. With the end of the war Rickenbacker elected to leave the air service and established his own automotive company before becoming General Manager of Eastern Airlines.