A Yankee Ace in the RAF: The World War I Letters of Captain Bogart Rogers (Modern War Studies) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0700621431 ISBN 13: 9780700621439

Publisher: University Press of Kansas, 2015

Synopsis

The engines are started, twenty shiny propellers glistening in the sun, forty exhausts rumbling and belching blue smoke. . . . Everything ready, the pilot waves his hand, the blocks are pulled and the flights taxi out one at a time. Away goes the commander, motor roaring, streamers flying, and the rest follow in their proper formation order. A couple of turns around the aerodrome and they're away to the line-up, up, and they soon disappear in the haze.

Just beyond that beckoning "haze," Captain Bogart Rogers and his fellow pilots flew into enemy territory to fight the world's first air war. Suffused with the romance of flight and the harsh realities of aerial combat, Rogers's letters to his fiancee, Isabelle Young, vividly detail his wartime experiences against a lethal and elusive opponent exemplified by the likes of Baron von Richthofen's Flying Circus.

The son of controversial Los Angeles attorney Earl Rogers ("the greatest jury lawyer of his time," claimed Clarence Darrow) and brother to pioneering Hearst journalist Adela Rogers St. Johns, Bogart made his mark in the Great War. Of the three hundred-plus Americans who joined the British air corps in 1917, only Rogers and two dozen other volunteers became "aces" by shooting down five or more German planes. He himself claimed six "kills" in fighting during the Second Battle of the Marne, the Somme Offensive, Cambrai, Ypres-Lys, and six other major engagements.

Rogers also had a definite flair for writing, one that launched his postwar career as a journalist and screenwriter in Hollywood. The letters in this volume are a striking testament to that skill. Lucid, reflective, highly articulate, and touched with flashes of humor, they illuminate the challenges of aviation training, daily life at the aerodromes, the liberating wonders of flight, and the sobering truths of a devastating war. They also reflect Rogers's constant longing for his future bride "Izzy" (who celebrates her 99th birthday in 1996).

About this title

From the Author:

In the summer of 1917 Bogart Rogers, a 20 year old sophomore at Stanford University and son of a prominent Los Angeles attorney joined the Royal Flying Corps, and trained in Canada, Texas, and England. Assigned to RAF No.32 Squadron, he arrived in France at the end of April, 1918. From the middle of May to the Armistice on November 11 Rogers fought in ten major battles on the Western Front and ended the war a Flight Leader and decorated Captain with six enemy planes to his credit. From the time he left for Canada in August 1917 until he returned home in May 1919 he wrote 244 letters to a Stanford girl, Isabelle Young, whom he married in 1920. The letters represent not only a chronicle of World War I, but also an 18 month courtship by mail. They are written with clarity and humor and the skill of a writer who, after the war, wrote for the Los Angeles Examiner, Cosmopolitan, Liberty, Sports Illustrated, The Saturday Evening Post, Popular Aviation and many other magazines . He was also a screen writer and movie producer for Paramount Pictures.

Although the book is published as Military History and covers the life of a young fighter pilot through training and aerial combat in "the terrible crucible of the air war" it also contains an element of romance and has appealed to at least a few women. One reader, Barbara Ivey wrote, "I so enjoyed becoming a part of the lives of these two sweethearts".

The original letters have been edited and the content reduced by a third, leaving out much of the trivia found in collections of letters such as comments on the weather and personal banter etc.. The book contains some, but not many footnotes. Each chapter is prefaced with a paragraph or two putting the events of the chapter in historical context.

From the Back Cover:

Suffused with the romance of flight and the harsh realities of aerial combat, Rogers's letters to his fiancee, Isabelle Young, vividly detail his wartime experiences against a lethal and elusive opponent exemplified by the likes of Baron von Richthofen's Flying Circus. The son of controversial Los Angeles attorney Earl Rogers ("the greatest jury lawyer of his time", claimed Clarence Darrow) and brother to pioneering Hearst journalist Adela Rogers St. Johns, Bogart made his mark in the Great War. Of the 300-plus Americans who joined the British air corps in 1917, only Rogers and two dozen other volunteers became aces by shooting down five or more German planes. He himself claimed six "kills" in fighting during the Second Battle of the Marne, the Somme Offensive, dogfights over Cambrai, dashes at Ypres and Lys, and six other major engagements. Rogers also had a definite flair for writing, one that launched his postwar career as a journalist and screenwriter in Hollywood. The letters in this volume are a striking testament to that skill. Lucid, reflective, highly articulate, and touched with flashes of humor, they illuminate the challenges of aviation training, daily life at the aerodrome, the liberating wonders of flight, and the sobering truths of a devastating war. They also reflect Rogers's constant longing for his future bride "Izzy" (who celebrated her ninety-ninth birthday in 1996).

About this edition

• Publisher: University Press of Kansas
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0700621431
• ISBN 13: 9780700621439
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 280
• Editor: Morrow Jr. John H., Rogers Earl