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Kings of the Air

I'm very happy to say I have just signed a contract with Pen and Sword Publishing, for a new book project. The proposed title is Kings of the Air: French Aces and Airmen of the Great War, and the book will be in the same style as my previous title for the same publisher, They Shall Not Pass: the French Army on the Western Front, published last year. The new title will make the same extensive use of original contemporary accounts by the aircrew themselves, taken from diaries, letters and interviews, to tell the story of the French Aviation Militaire during the First World War. Most of the accounts will be appearing in English for the first time; the remaining have all been translated from the French afresh. Delivery time for the manuscript is the beginning of December 2013.

In this blog, I hope to publish some material that just won't fit into the text, and other stuff connected with French aviation between 1914 and 1918.

The pictures are portraits by Henri Farré of Georges Guynemer, Gabriel Guerin and René Roeckler, at least two of whom - at the moment - already feature in the book.

Edit: even happier now I've got the cheque from the publisher! Now all this work won't be going to waste!
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