Memoirs of an Old Balloonatic
Hodges, Goderic
When a call came round the R.F.C. training school at Oxford for volunteers to transfer to balloons, the author was quick to apply. He had been with the army at Gallipoli, and in Egypt, and had then volunteered to join the R.F.C. He was always interested in anything in the least unusual. And he had never heard of observation balloons. This call was different, for it was to lead to a lifetime's affection for balloons.
After training he was sent to the Western Front and his book teils of his experiences there with observation balloons. Set side by side with the grim starkness of warfare on the western front, the author gives the reader a vivid impression of what it was like to be up in a balloon, of the beauty of the world from that height, and not least of the funny episodes that inevitably occurred during his training and practice with balloons - such as his near-miss landing through the reading room of the British Museum. He relates the horrors of warfare during the later part of the war, including his own personal tragedy and yet with the gusto and humour with which he describes his ballooning experiences he imparts to the reader some of the spell which balloons have cast over him.
Hardcover with dust jacket
175 Seiten / pages
photos
book very good condition, dust jacket a little rubbed
London - 1972 - William Kimber
Art.Nr. 16819
