Bloody April.......Black September

Even those people who know little of WWI's air war will have heard of Bloody April. After more than 18 months of deadly stalemate on the Western Front, by April 1917 the British and French were again about to launch yet another land offensive, this time on the Arras Front.
This would be the first opportunity to launch a major offensive since the winter and would require enormous support from the Royal Flying Corps and French Air Force in, hopefully, improved weather. However, the air offensive was to be countered fiercely by the new German Jagstaffeln - Jastas - that had been the brainchild of Oswald Boelcke in 1916. By the spring of 1917, the first Jasta pilots, with new improved fighters - the nimble Albatros DIIIs - were just itching to get to grips with their opponents over the Western Front.
What followed was a near massacre of British and French aircraft and crews, which made April the worst month for flying casualties the war had yet seen. A day-by-day, blow-by-blow account of these losses forms the first part of this book.
Part two jumps ahead a further 15 months, to September 1918. Much had happened over this period. More battles had been fought, won and lost on both sides, but now the American strength was feeding into France with both men and material. In September came the mighty push on the French/American Front at St Mihiel on 12 September and then along the Meuse-Argonne Front from the 26th, that once more put masses of men and aircraft into the air.
They were opposed by no less a formidable German fighter force than had the squadrons in April 1917, although the numbers were not in their favor. Nevertheless, the German fighter pilots were able to inflict an even larger toll of British, French and American aircraft shot down, making this the worst month for the Allied flyers during the whole of WWI - and this just a mere six weeks from the war's bloody finale.
The authors have undertaken painstaking and detailed research into the air battles during these two crucial months. They have unearthed many new photographs and they reveal and explain the daily lists of casualties and claims, and compare and contrast the tactics used by both sides. Although it is difficult to pin-point exactly who was fighting who high above the trenches, by pouring over maps and carefully studying almost all the surviving records, the picture of 'who got who' in the air, slowly begins to emerge with deadly accuracy.

by N. Franks, R. Guest, and F. Bailey
Published by Grub Street 1995 1st edition. 314pp illustrated, index, appendix. 18x25 previous owner's ink stamp to front free end paper otherwise mint, d/j very slightly rubbed.






Note:
"Long" descriptions, where shown, may have been taken from the book's dust jacket notes, and as such are relevant to the date of publication (e.g. any references to "previously unpublished photographs" etc.) and not the present.