5 Questions and answers
Meant being an aviator in World War 1 that you were safe from the horrors of war?
No. While being safe from living and dying in the trenches, being an aviator meant that most of the time you were in mortal danger from crashing by accident, being shot down by ground troops or getting killed by enemy planes. Especially in the later stages of the war, pilots were sent to fight and die in huge numbers.
Were pilots in WW1 "knights of the sky"?
No. Pilots were neither excluded from the chain of command that send them to kill nor were they bound by any code of honor that was universal among the nations. While many of them might have felt as if there was chivalry among their kind, the last years of the war would prove them wrong, as great numbers of young, poorly trained pilots flooded their ranks.
Compiled by Jan-Philipp Birkhoff and Etienne Ludwig.
