author
Harold Rosher
1893–1916
A young Royal Naval Air Service officer, he left behind vivid wartime letters that bring the earliest days of military flying to life. His writing is direct, observant, and made more poignant by the fact that he was killed in service at just twenty-two.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born in Beckenham on November 18, 1893, Harold Rosher was educated at The Dene, Caterham, and later at Woodbridge. Accounts published with his letters say that he struggled with asthma and bronchitis as a boy, yet he pushed himself hard at school and developed the toughness that would mark his short life.
Rosher served in the Royal Naval Air Service during the First World War and became known through the letters he wrote home. Published after his death as In the Royal Naval Air Service and With the Flying Squadron, those letters give a clear, personal view of early air warfare, training, raids, and the daily strain of service. An introduction to his published correspondence notes that he was killed in February 1916.
What makes his work memorable is its immediacy. Rather than writing as a distant historian, he wrote as a young man living through a new and dangerous form of war, which gives his books the feeling of both a personal memoir and a first-hand record of aviation history.