Horses don't fly

" From breaking wild horses in Colorado to fighting the Red Baron's squadrons in the skies over France, here in his own words is the true story of a forgotten American hero: the cowboy who became our first ace and the first pilot to fly the American colors over enemy lines.Growing up on a ranch in Sterling, Colorado, Frederick Libby mastered the cowboy arts of roping, punching cattle, and taming horses. Once he even roped an antelope. As a young man he exercised his skills in the mountains and on the ranges of Arizona and New Mexico as well as the Colorado prairie. When World War I broke out, he found himself in Calgary, Alberta, and joined the Canadian army. In France, he transferred to the Royal Flying Corps as an "observer," the gunner in a two-person biplane. Libby shot down an enemy plane on his first day in battle over the Somme, which was also the first day he flew in a plane or fired a machine gun. He went on to become a pilot. He fought against the legendary German aces Oswald Boelcke and Manfred von Richthofen. He became the first American to down five enemy planes and won the Military Cross for conspicuous gallantry in action. When the United States entered the war, he became the first person to fly the American colors over German lines. Libby achieved the rank of captain before he transferred back to the United States at the behest of another aviation legend, then-colonel Billy Mitchell. Written in 1961 and never before published, Horses Don't Fly is a rare piece of Americana. Libby's memoir of his cowboy days in the last years of the Old West will remind readers of Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy-but it's the real thing. His description of World War I combines a rattling good account of the air war over France with captivating and sometimes poignant depictions of wartime London, the sorrow for friends lost in combat, and the courage and camaraderie of the Royal Flying Corps. Told in a modest, self-deprecating, and often humorous voice in a pure American vernacular, Horses Don't Fly is, as Winston Groom notes in his introduction, "not only an important piece of previously unpublished history [but] a gripping and uplifting story to read."

Kirkus评论

A reticent yet sharply impressed memoir of a turn-of-the-century cowpuncher who enlisted in the Canadian Royal Flying Corps and was decorated for valor in WWI. Although the impetus for Liddys memoir was clearly his heroics as an aviator over the Somme, he sets the stage by recounting, in detail, his youth in the Platte Valley of Colorado (real cow country for real cowmen). There is plenty of ranching action herewild horse roundups, gathering cattle in the high country, cruel winters on the rangeand as he grows older there is plenty of drinkin and gamblin and womanin as well. The author unreels his share of homespunnery: as a young boy, he quips, all the little girls will be after me. Them I can do without. They smell terrible, all perfume and stuff; by the time he is a young man, however, he realizes that there are no bad horsesjust bad people. He keeps the story immediate (perhaps a bit too immediate), narrating it as if he were walking across the paddock in the company of a good friend, kicking at the dry earth and breathing in the sage-filled air. It comes as some relief, then, when Libby changes the venue with his enlistment in the flying corps at the start of WWI. In describing what was surely a hair-raising time, the author adopts a reserved tonealthough he does slip in a number of passages describing how he and some stout fellows cross into the German listening post in No Mans Land, where they play Home Sweet Home on the Heinies throat with a real sharp knife. The unvarnished delivery makes the primitive air war all the more terrifying, while the sheer number of engagements Libby found himself in (shooting down 24 enemy craft and getting shot down in turn) is stupefying. Poker-faced as it is, Libbys memoir makes for a striking period piecefrom the high plains of the American West to the blue skies shared with Baron von Richtofen. (8 b&w photos, not seen)

《图书馆杂志》(Library Journal )书评

It is surprising that this remarkable World War I memoir, written shortly after 1918, has remained unpublished for 82 years. Author Libby survived the war and died in 1970, but he left a powerful account of his three years of aerial combat over the trenches in France, first as an observer/gunner and later as a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps. Libby was an American cowboy from Colorado. By 1914, at age 22, he was in Canada and joined the Canadian Army for the travel and adventure offered by a world war. The first half of the book is Libby's tale of cowpunching and horsebreaking in the last decades of the Old West. Even better, however, is the second half, where he vividly relates his at once hilarious and terrifying experiences as an American flying in a British aircraft against swarms of German fighter planes. Credited with 24 aerial victories, Libby was the first American to be awarded England's Military Cross for valor, presented by King George V himself. By volunteering before America entered the war, Libby lost his citizenship, but he clearly has no regrets. This colorful, stirring memoir leaves no doubt that he made the right decision, and it serves as a grim reminder of the archaic chivalry and cold-blooded nature of early aerial warfare. Strongly recommended for all public libraries.DCol. William D. Bushnell, USMC (ret.), Harpswell, ME (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Introduction	p. ix
Preface	p. xi
Map of Western Front 1914-18	p. xii
1 Sunrise	p. 1
2 An Antelope, a Rope and a Small Boy	p. 6
3 School and Sis, Wild Horses and the Stinkenest Hog Wallow in the World	p. 13
4 My First Big Battle	p. 21
5 Our Home Ranch and a Man with a Gun	p. 29
6 A Girl, a Jug of Whiskey and Sheepherders	p. 37
7 Wild Horse Roundup for Polo Ponies	p. 42
8 Phoenix, Wild Horses, Wild Steers and a Broken Leg	p. 49
9 Christmas Eve, with Hundreds of Dead Cattle	p. 58
10 Denver, Where I'm Rolled of My Loot by a Pimp	p. 69
11 More Wild Horses and a Big Gray Outlaw	p. 75
12 Fourth of July Celebration, Susie, Cyclone and a Wild Beautiful Brown Stallion	p. 83
13 God's Country--Imperial Valley	p. 94
14 Calgary, Investment in Oil and a Soldier of the King	p. 102
15 Loss of Citizenship, Sergeants Moose and Little Moose and the Motor Transport	p. 111
16 An Operation, an Examination, Mutiny and War	p. 119
17 I Join the Royal Air Force to Get out of the Rain	p. 129
18 First Flight over German Lines, One Enemy Plane Confirmed	p. 140
19 Recommended for My Commission and Trying to Live, I Have a Great Idea	p. 151
20 Back to France as an Officer, Where I Meet and Become Friends with the Royal Flying Corps' Greatest Fighting Ace, Lieutenant Albert Ball	p. 160
21 In a Drinking Bout, Price and I Lose a Battle to Our Own Artillery	p. 170
22 Boelcke, the Great German Ace, and His Boys Cause Us Our Greatest Loss in Any Single Engagement	p. 179
23 Captain Price Returns to England--I Follow Shortly--We Are Both Decorated at Buckingham Palace by His Majesty King George V	p. 189
24 Thank God for America's Ambassador Page and His Military Attache, Captain Chapman	p. 200
25 A Great Major, a Sick Observer and a Forced Landing in Our Trenches	p. 213
26 Dinner at the Savoy in London to Honor Our Old Commanding Officer--Back to France, Where We Lose Captain Harold Balfour in a Dogfight	p. 226
27 Two Americans Who Lost Their Citizenship Return to America at General Mitchell's Recommendation	p. 236
28 Two Weeks with My Family in Boston--Then Texas, Where Space Began--A Hospital That Was a Morgue	p. 246
29 New York to See a Great Specialist--The Auctioning of the First American Colors to Cross the German Lines	p. 258
30 A Free Man, Lucky Beyond Belief	p. 264
Acknowledgments	p. 269
Afterword	p. 271

可借阅:*

链接这些题名

已订购

摘要

摘要

评论 (2)

Kirkus评论

《图书馆杂志》(Library Journal )书评

目录