Fighting the Flying Circus

The format is approximately 4.5 inches by 7 inches. lxxii, 435, [5] pages. Publisher's Preface. Historical Introduction Illustrations (some color). Maps (some in color). Footnotes. Glossary of Aviation Expressions. Additional Reading. Index. No dust jacket present. Holiday gift message from a Donnelley representative laid in. The text was set and pages output by ComCom, the R. R. Donnelly composition facility located in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The body typeface is 11/12 pt. Bulmer. Images were scanned and proofed on state-of-the-art equipment in the Crawfordsvile, Indiana, Book Manufacturing Division electronic prepress center. Maps were created by GeoSystems of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The paper stock with 50-pound White Lakeside Classics Opaque. Cloth for the one-piece case binding is Roxite C Vellum Chocolate Brown, manufactured to Holliston Mills, Inc. Foreword by Laurence La Tourette Driggs. Edward Vernon Rickenbacker (born Edward Rickenbacher, October 8, 1890 - July 23, 1973) was an American fighter pilot in World War I and a Medal of Honor recipient. With 26 aerial victories, he was the most successful and most decorated United States flying ace of the war. He was also a racing driver, an automotive designer, and a long-time head of Eastern Air Lines. In late May 1917, Rickenbacker was invited to sail to England with General John J. Pershing. By mid-June, he was in France, where he enlisted in the United States infantry. In February and March, 1918 Rickenbacker and the officers of the nascent 1st Pursuit Group completed advanced training The 1st Pursuit Group was the first air combat group formed by the Air Service, American Expeditionary Force, on 5 May 1918. The Group was first organized at Croix de Metz Aerodrome, near Toul, France, as a result of the United States entry into World War I. As the 1st Pursuit Group it saw combat on the Western Front in France. The pilots of the 1st Group included Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, credited as the top scoring American ace in France during World War I. This is one of the best first-hnd accounts of air combat in World War I, by an American "ace of aces." Eddie Rickenbacker had an extraordinary career: inventor, race car driver, fighter ace, Medal of Honor winner, and finally president of Eastern Air Lines. In this book he recounts how he achieved 26 confirmed kills in less than a year of combat on the Western Front, rising from the ranks to lead the famed "Hat-in-the-Ring" squadron. Early pilots had to contend with primitive engines, unreliable guns, no parachutes, no oxygen, and wings that could tear off in a dive. Just surviving was a daily challenge, and Rickenbacker saw many friends and comrades die through no fault of their own. In this book he unflinchingly explains all of the errors that he made in combat, and how he learned to become a better dogfighter. He also gives the reader a glimpse of the tremendous psychological pressure that came from being America's leading ace - every previous holder had been shot down - and from his own leadership style of leading from the front. The collection of Lakeside Classics were one of the longest, continuously running series of Americana. Every year since 1903 their publisher, The Lakeside Press an imprint of R. R. Donnelley & Son, produced these carefully bound books as Christmas gifts to their employees, stockholders, vendors and business associates. The books in the series were never sold by R. R. Donnelley, so their sale only occurred when the books entered the secondary market. Until recently the aim had been to reproduce a book which had been long out of print, extremely uncommon and only known to historians of the early West. Additionally, the book had to cover a subject matter which provided the reader with an accurate, first person, narrative of events, times or places of the pioneering period of the U.S. All of the books in the series were produced in a 16mo format with a uniform height and depth. With only a few exception. …