Australian Hawk Over the Western Front

Book excerpt: The true story of Australia’s greatest flying ace and his WWI victories, based on his letters, combat reports, and other documents. Includes photos. Major Roderick Dallas is Australia’s leading air ace of all time and, with fifty victories, also one of the highest-scoring Commonwealth aces. Yet, until this excellently researched volume, there has never been a full biography of this exceptional pilot, whose fighting career spanned from 1916 to 1918. Flying Nieuport Scouts, Triplanes, and Camels with the RNAS and RAF, he was an ever-present threat over the Western Front and the scourge of the German Air Force. Adrian Hellwig’s book has been taken principally from primary sources—Dallas’s own letters, log book, and service record, in addition to squadron record books, combat reports and contemporary accounts—and his resulting conclusions will surprise many. Here is a fitting tribute not just to Australia’s greatest war hero of the air but to a man any country would be proud to call its own.