Award Winning Guide to WWI Air War Documentary Films Garners Two More Great Reviews
Crestview, FL (PRWEB) June 16, 2009
Have you ever seen a “Jenny” do a triple loop or a squadron of WWI American made “Liberty” bombers take off on a mission over the front? You can…in glorious black and white!
Capt. John F. O’Connell, USN (Ret.) writing for Air Power History cited WAR WINGS as “…a marvelous piece of work about a very different version of World War I in the air. The book provides specific pointers to serious researchers to help them locate relevant motion picture material about U.S. military and naval aviation activities during the First World War.”
Peter Kilduff of Over The Front Magazine said, “Thanks to Phillip Stewart’s landmark book pertaining to World War I films, with scene-by-scene descriptions of the action shown, those old films have taken on a new meaning.”
Contrary to some widely held beliefs, large, heavy, wooden boxes with crude brass-encased glass lenses, metal hand cranks, and ungainly tripods were indeed filming the events of the Great War. They were shot on location, as history happened, by dedicated and courageous U.S. Army Signal Corps soldier-cameramen. Scenes of pilot training, aerial combat in the skies over France, airplane manufacturing, and the post-Armistice testing of enemy airplanes were all captured on film during 1917 through 1919. The films that found their way back from “Over There” are preserved at the National Archives.
Unfortunately, few of these motion pictures show the newest weapon of the war, the airplane, in action. In fact, of the thousands of WWI related reels held in the National Archives, only 71 film titles document aviation activities, and half of those titles consist of only a few scenes.
With the centennial of America’s involvement in World War I less than a decade away, it’s important for all of us, who share more than a casual interest in early aviation, to re-discover and explore all available resources. The films cataloged in this book document a fascinating visual story of war in the air of 90 years ago. It is incumbent upon all of us, as we begin the process of re-telling, re-writing and re-showing the first air war to generations of people with little knowledge of it, that we include the moving image element–the motion picture.
As Walter J. Boyne noted Historian and National Aviation Hall of Fame Enshrinee wrote, “This book is absolutely indispensable to a student of World War I aviation. Anyone writing anything about WWI aviation needs to use this book to give flesh and dimension to what otherwise is found only in the printed word.”
WAR WINGS: Films of the First Air War by Phillip W. Stewart (ISBN 978-0-9793243-4-5; .95 trade pb; pms press; 236 pages; 2008) is available through Amazon.com.
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