ISBN: 0 297 84621 3 HB 381 pages £25.00
Published by Weindenfield & Nicholson
The Battle of Arras is the forgotton battle of the Great War.
Many Great War authors have penned important works on the battles of 1915, the Battle of the Somme and the three battles of Ypres, very few have looked at Arras in April 1917.
In Bloody April, Peter Hart has looked at the battle from the view point of those who flew with the Royal Flying Corps (R.F.C.) and the Royal Naval Air Service (R.N.A.S.), during the turmatic months of April and May 1917.
The book is well structured commencing with a review of the R.F.C.’s and to a lesser extent the R.N.A.S.’s activities from the summer of 1914 to the early spring of 1917. It is written from a revisionist point of view. Peter also makes many interesting observations in the introductory section of the book. The one which stand out refers to the Scout Pilots or Air Aces.. “Unfortunately, the scout pilots role soon became so wreathed with glamour that then, and ever since, this allure has deflected attention from the real role of the R.F.C...”
Once the book commences with the story of the battle extensive use is made the pilots accounts of their life and all to regular death expliots over the Arras battlefields. This narrative helps to explain to the reader just how the pilots and observers coped with combat, fear, survival and death during their many hazardous missions.
The reader through Peter’s narrative is helped to see the whole picture rather than looking at the battle as a group of isolated incidents involving the many unsung heroes of the R.F.C. Time and again you are told about daring exploits and acts of selfless sacrifice to obtain arieal photographs of enemy trenches and gun positions. Most importantly this is placed into context, you are remined the RFC’s role was to provide information which was then used to support the Infantry on the ground.
The book also introduces the reader to the exploits of the ‘Red Baron’, Manfred von Richthofen and his flying circus. The reader very quickly becomes aware that the German pilots such as Richthofen selected their prey with great skill. If they were to be of use they had to stopped the enemy getting their photographs and disrupt the arieal direction of artillery fire.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. This is a first class study of the Battle of Arras. At long last we have a book which really does prove the quote ‘Up the Arras’, the R.F.C. met the challenge and came out on top.
Reviewer Martin Hornby