Maurice Baring made an unlikely soldier but during the First World War, at the age of forty, he obtained a commission and became Private Secretary to Hugh Trenchard, Commander of the Royal Flying Corps in France, and, later on, creator of the Royal Air Force. Drawn from letters and diaries, Baring describes the momentous war years that forged the flying services. The embryo RAF was lucky to have such an observant and eloquent chronicler of its early years. General Foch said 'There never was a Staff Officer in any country, in any century like Major Maurice Baring'. When first published in 1920, it was hailed 'as one of the few war books that will survive'.