Wings of Destruction

He who conquers the fear of death is master of his fate. Upon this philosophy fifty thousand young men of the warring nations went forth to do battle among the clouds. The story of these battles is the real romance of the first World War. In 1914, no one had ever known and history had never recorded a struggle to the death in the air. This is the story of the German, French and British aces of the Great War.

Raoul Lufberry, Quentin Roosevelt, son of ex-President Roosevelt, and Edward Rickenbacker were names that figured extensively in news of the American Air forces. Lufberry and Roosevelt were killed in action. Rickenbacker, after dozens of hair-raising escapes from death, came through the war without injury. The pioneer of American aviators in the war was William Thaw of Yale, who formed the original Lafayette Escadrille.

Technically the speed of sound had probably been broken before that by several Second World War aircraft. Some British and American fighters may have unintentionally exceeded the speed of sound in an evasive dive and there are unconfirmed reports that the German ME 262 jet fighter managed to break the sound barrier. In November 1945, a British jet fighter the Gloster Meteor set a new official world speed record of 606.25 mph. It was two years later before the sound barrier was broken by an American aircraft the Bell X-1. Test pilot 'Chuck' Yeager named the aircraft 'Glamorous Glennis' after his wife. The Age of the Super Sonic fighter was born.

"MiG Alley" is the name given by U.S. Air Force pilots to the northwestern portion of North Korea, where the Yalu River empties into the Yellow Sea. During the Korean War, it was the site of numerous dogfights between U.S. fighter jets and those of the Communist forces, particularly the Soviet Union. The F-86 Saber and the Soviet-built MiG-15 'Fagot' were the aircrafts used throughout most of the conflict, with the area's nickname derived from the latter. Because it was the site of the first large-scale jet-vs.-jet air battles, MiG Alley is considered the birthplace of jet fighter combat.