Airfields & Airmen: Somme (Battleground Europe)

Following on the success of Airfields and Airmen of Ypres, the author turns his attention to the most legendary sector of the British effort in World War I, the Somme. From 1916 to 1918 the British and German armies were locked in a deadly struggle here, while the Royal Flying Corps and the Imperial German Air Service flew overhead. Initially acting as scouts and artillery spotters, the ever more sophisticated aircraft became instruments of war themselves, engaging in deadly conflict far above the deadlocked armies below. This new volume uses the Battleground Europe format of maps and then-and-now illustrations to cover all the airfields, crash sites and areas associated with the units, battles and individual aces of the aerial conflict of World War I. Coverage also includes French actions, and a few American units that served in the region near the end of the war.