I Chose the Sky

The newest addition to the Grub Street Classics range is this fascinating, insightful and, at times, nail-biting account by the World War One veteran, Leonard H. Rochford. This book has been out of print for more than thirty years and we are delighted to be putting it back on the shelves, with black and white photographs throughout.

In these exciting memoirs, ‘Tich’ Rochford writes about his two action-filled years as a World War I fighter pilot with the famous No. 3 (Naval) Squadron when he flew planes such as the Sopwith Pup and the Sopwith Camel. While flying many hundreds of hours in operations he was credited with many single-handed victories or driven out of control, and he vividly recalls these engagements in the air and the exploits of the pilots with whom he flew, names that include other fighter aces like Raymond Collishaw, who has written a foreword to this book, T. F. Havell, R. H. Mulock and L. S. Breadner.

A member of his flight, Lt. Col. Kirkpatrick said of him, ‘I always had the impression that what he did came naturally to him. If he saw an enemy aircraft and decided to attack, that was that. He went screaming down on it and we all had our work cut out to keep up with him. One could be pretty sure of the victim going down in flames.’