Series of books about WWI pilots

May 21, 2009 12:55 PM

I once heard about a series of novels about WWI pilots in the vein of the Aubrey-Maturin series, or Flashman. Might have had "Hell" in the title. It was basically about a bunch of crazy guys who knew that they had a good chance of dying. IIRC, the commander of the group had to justify buying silk scarves for the pilots to keep their necks from chafing. Any ideas?
posted by nushustu to media & arts (8 comments total)

You're almost certainly thinking of Goshawk Squadron by Derek Robinson
posted by mojohand at 1:23 PM on May 21

Yup. That's it. Thanks!
posted by nushustu at 1:33 PM on May 21

Let's try that again. Clicked 'post' by mistake.

You're almost certainly thinking of Goshawk Squadron by Derek Robinson. It's part of his RFC trilogy, which includes War Story and Hornet's Sting. They're not really serial in narrative, but they share some characters and the atmosphere of doomed black humor that recalls Catch 22.

Robinson doesn't have a publisher of late and he's offering the three books as a package from his website for 30 pounds, and he signs them for you, too.

If you like these, I also recommend Robinson's Piece of Cake set in a RAF squadron in the first years of World War II.
posted by mojohand at 1:42 PM on May 21 [1 favorite]

If it's a *series* of novels in the Flashman vein (ie, humourous stories), you may be thinking of the Bandy Papers by Donald Jack.
posted by KokuRyu at 4:16 PM on May 21

hehe now I know what I'm going to read after finishing Aubrey-Maturin. Which I found out about from reading and reading about Hornblower. And so the train of books keeps rolling.
posted by spacefire at 7:07 PM on May 21

Piece of Cake was a damn fine read. I'm glad to learn that Robinson wrote more. Thanks.
posted by dws at 10:14 PM on May 21

Piece of Cake was also very good on screen, and now is on a three-DVD set that I was delighted to get through my local library. Marveolous flying sequences!
posted by wenestvedt at 8:20 AM on May 22

Never had heard of Derek Robinson. Now I've started reading him, it scares me to think that I could have gone through life never having heard of him. Many many thanks
posted by IndigoJones at 5:03 PM on June 2