Issue No 21 THE AVIATION HISTORIAN 119
Importance of Water Transport”, and to a listing
of Royal Flying Corps and Royal Naval Air
Service aircraft serial numbers with individual
service histories. A useful bibliography rounds
off the book.
The bounteous collection of informatively
captioned photos, many previously unpublished
and including some unusual in-the-field aircraft
modifications, is spread liberally throughout the
book. All in all this is very good value, both for
the material contained and for the high standard
of production.PHILIP JARRETTDeath Was Their Co-Pilot
By Michael Dörflinger; Pen & Sword Books,47 Church
Street, Barnsley, S70 2AS; 6½in x 9½in (160mm x 242mm);
hardback; 208 pages, illustrated; £25. ISBN 978-1-473859-
28-9I MUST ADMIT I had immediate misgivings
about this book because of the title, presumably
inspired by Robert Lee Scott Jr ’s autobiography
God Is My Co-Pilot. This volume is about fighter
aces of the First World War — when no fighter
aircraft had copilots. Even heavy bombers had
only one set of controls. The original German
title roughly translates as “Death Rides With
Me”, which is better, but potentially poses a
problem for the publisher; without a descriptive
subtitle, how will people looking for a book on
this subject find it online or in a bookshop?
Niggles about the title notwithstanding, this
book does its job well enough, providing brief
biographies of the principal aces of the war
plus a basic overview of the development of air
fighting, the principal types of aeroplane used
and the air services of the countries involved.
Anybody who has studied the subject in depth
is likely to find little new here, but a reader fairly
new to the subject will get a largely accuratecovering the period 1935–39. If they replicate
this first volume, then this project will begin to
form what will certainly be the largest and most
detailed general study of the Luftwaffe in the
English language.
The value of this first volume is in providing
the reader with a diligent and empathetic “one-
stop shop” overview of the period covered,
based on the prime existing literature.
ROBERT FORSYTH
Wings Over Mesopotamia: Air War in Iraq
1914–1918
By Mark Lax, Mike O’Connor and Ray Vann; Cross &
Cockade International, available via http://www.crossandcockade.
com; 8½in x 11½in (210mm x 297mm); softback; 144
pages, illustrated; £25 + £2.30 p&p in the UK. ISBN 978-0-
955573-48-4
AS WELL AS producing an excellent quarterly
journal, Cross & Cockade International
has established a reputation for publishing
authoritative books on First World War aviation.
This latest offering maintains the high standard,
spotlighting a previously poorly covered
theatre of operations. It is based upon a four-
part history of the air war in Mesopotamia by
Mark Lax, originally published in the ’14-’18
Journal of the Australian Society of World War
1 Aero Historians; but it has been considerably
enhanced and embellished as a result of the
research undertaken by Ray Vann and the
late Mike O’Connor of the UK, who tracked
down logbooks, diaries and photo albums and
consulted Service records.
The resulting book is far greater than the sum
of its parts. Profusely illustrated with useful
maps and clear photographs of aircraft, locations
and personnel, its main section provides a blow-
by-blow chronological account of events. There
follow sections devoted to personnel, to “The