author
Harold Rosher
1893–1916
These vivid World War I letters offer a firsthand view of early military aviation, written with the energy of someone living through a brand-new kind of war. Published after his death in 1916, they preserve the voice of a young Royal Naval Air Service pilot whose life was cut short in service.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born in Beckenham on November 18, 1893, Harold Rosher was educated at The Dene in Caterham and later at Woodbridge. The introduction to In the Royal Naval Air Service notes that he struggled with severe asthma and bronchitis as a boy, yet he still developed a reputation for grit and determination.
Rosher served as a flight lieutenant in the Royal Naval Air Service during the First World War. He became known not through fiction or memoir written after the fact, but through letters home that described training, raids, and the everyday realities of flying in the war's early air service.
Those letters were collected and published in 1916 as In the Royal Naval Air Service, with an introduction by Arnold Bennett. The result is both a personal record and a moving historical document, capturing the courage, youth, and immediacy of one of the war's early aviators.