THE CENTURY OF FLYING ACES

A world history of flying aces, from WWI to the Iran-Iraq war, based on hitherto unpublished sources and interviews with both male and female pilots.

On July 25, 1988, Assadollah Adeli shot down an Iraqi MiG-29 near Kermanshah, Iran, from an F-14 Tomcat interceptor. Without realizing it, the Iranian pilot became aviation history's final “Ace,” i.e. a fighter pilot credited with at least five ratified victories in aerial combat. Echoing the memory of the French pilot Adolphe Pégoud – the man who, in August, 1915, became the first to reach that magical number five – Adeli joined the ranks of a legendary legion of 8,000 exceptional pilots of some 40 different nationalities.

Thanks to his in-depth knowledge of the archives – which, for the most part, were previously unpublished and only recently opened – and to the numerous pilots he has interviewed, Pierre Razoux has written a precise,
detailed account, which corrects misconceptions while bringing many forgotten aces back into the spotlight. Who knew, for example, that the Spaniards were real firecrackers during the Spanish Civil War, eclipsing
their German, Italian, and Russian counterparts? Or that the Finnish came in top of the class during WWII – not counting the Germans and Austrians, with their absolutely amazing scores – ahead of the Japanese, the Soviets and the Allies? Who would have guessed that there were more Soviet than American aces during the Korean War, and three times more Vietnamese than Americans during the Vietnam War? And that, all told, half of all planes brought down in combat were notches in the belt of an ace?

Pierre RAZOUX is research director at the Military Academy's Strategic Research Institute (IRSEM). A practitioner in international relations, renowned for his expertise on the Middle East, he is the author of several books that are now references on various contemporary conflicts, particularly the Israeli-Arab conflict: Tsahal:
A New History of the Israeli Army (Perrin, Tempus, 2008) and The Iran-Iraq War: 1980- 1988 (Tempus, 2017). He appears regularly in both the French and foreign media.