Marked for Death

The First War in the Air

By: James Hamilton-Paterson

Narrated by: Gildart Jackson

Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's summary

A dramatic and fascinating account of aerial combat during World War I, revealing the terrible risks taken by the men who fought and died in the world's first war in the air.

Little more than 10 years after the first powered flight, aircraft were pressed into service in World War I. Nearly forgotten in the war's massive overall death toll, some 50,000 aircrew would die in the combatant nations' fledgling air forces. The romance of aviation had a remarkable grip on the public imagination, propaganda focusing on gallant air "aces" who become national heroes. The reality was horribly different. Marked for Death debunks popular myth to explore the brutal truths of wartime aviation: of flimsy planes and unprotected pilots; of burning, screaming 19-year-olds falling to their deaths; of pilots blinded by the entrails of their observers.

James Hamilton-Paterson also reveals how four years of war produced profound changes both in the aircraft themselves, and in military attitudes and strategy. By 1918 it was widely accepted that domination of the air above the battlefield was crucial to military success, a realization that would change the nature of warfare forever.

©2016 James Hamilton-Paterson (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Pronunciation

Pronunciation of German words was at times so bad as to impede comprehension. Otherwise, it was a good reading.

Pretty okay

I enjoyed it for the most part, but I really wasn’t a fan of the narrator. I really dislike when narrators do impressions and accents even when they’re good at them, which this guy definitely was not. I found it distracting and it really took away from the narration of the book. Here I am listening to a fairly dry historical non-fiction book, I don’t need impressions to add “pizazz”. His Canadian, American, French, and German accents sucked. Even his Scottish accents were garbage and the guy is British so you’d expect him to be able to pull that off. I dislike it when narrators do good impressions, but when they’re this bad it’s a struggle to get through the book at times.

As for the book itself, it was a good overview of aviation in the First World War, something I didn’t have a lot of specific knowledge of. Definitely Anglo-centric, which is understandable with a British author who probably relied primarily on English-language sources. I did find him unnecessarily snarky when talking about the British at times, maybe it was just the narrator and my growing disdain for his performance but it did start to irritate me. I’m American and not an Anglophile by any means but I’m pretty certain the British didn’t hold a monopoly on terrible decisions, attitudes or culture during the war or the period leading up to or immediately following it. It almost seemed like the author felt free to criticize his own forebears but thought it was out of order to be equally critical of others. Again, maybe that was just a source problem, but my impression by the end was that it was a weird sort of self-flagellation. I appreciated the info on aviation during the war, but I was happy to be done with the book once it was over so I didn’t have to listen to the snark and the bad impressions.

WW 1 Aces in the sky

The book overal was good. It went into detail on some of the small things in the war such as training, and bullets and parachutes. Some chapters were really good, others were dull. But in an audiobook you just listen along or tune out. if reading this book, I would have put it down when I hit the dull parts. Good for an audiobook, slow to read.

Good book, but will probably bore most people.

It reads like a text book and is loaded with stats and facts of early aviation focusing mostly on its impact on WWI. it's a decent book with lots of information and stories, but i doubt most people will find it to be an entertaining and fun book unless you love airplanes and early aviation.

Very informative

It took the glamour out of WWI flying aces, like the Red Baron, showing how dangerous early aerial battles were. Pilots were as likely to be killed by their planes as by the enemy.

Wonderful

I would recommend for those who wish to understand how WWI accelerated the research and development of aircraft as well as the extreme risks taken by the pilots.

I thought I knew a lot about the air war in WWI. I was wrong

This magnificent book fills in a great many details about the general social political and engineering aspects of WWI. The focus is primarily on Great Britain, and secondarily on Germany and France with scant mention of the USA, and czarist Russia.

The writing is sharp and the narration witty.

EXCELLENT

Superb both story and performance. Sorry to reach the end and worth a second listen.







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This is the real air war

Excellent account of the war in the air from the earliest days in 1914 to the bitter end. Detailed, but never dull. I learned so much from this audio book...and I already thought I knew something. Highly recommended.

Not a swashbuckler but has some interesting stuff

While this book definitely contained a number of accounts of flying with the RFC in WW1, it wasn't as lively as some other books (e.g. Open Cockpit, which is referenced in this book). It does, however, contain a number of facts about the early days of the RFC and RAF.

It is probably important to note that this book is specifically about the RFC / RAF. It touches on the air services of other countries only when necessary to complete a point. In fact, the book ends with details of how the RFC evolved into the RAF of 2015 and the author's feelings about that evolution.

As opposed to most accounts of WW1 aviation, this one is not chronological. It, instead, builds chapters around topics of interest. For example, there are chapters on the 1914 -
1918 evolutions in: aircraft design (teaching, among other things, why biplanes were favored over monoplanes - a reason different than most people think), aviation medicine, pilot lives, and armament.

I thought the narrator was quite good, picking up decent accents to represent people from various countries. It seemed that there were a few mispronunciations but I suspect these were actually just differences between the way that words are pronounced in the UK and here in the US.

So, while I prefer first person flying stories that provide facts from the time (Open Cockpit is really a great listen for anyone so interested), this was a fine book for any World War One aviation enthusiast interested in learning facts that aren't generally covered in books of this genre.