Books: A History of the R.A.F.

FROM BIRD CAGE TO BATTLE PLANE—Ralph Michaelis—CrowelI ($2.75).

One fall day in 1911 "the entire military air force of the British Empire" was assembled in southern England, took off in a body for a destination no miles away. In that one brief flight, when two planes crashed, the Empire lost half its air power.

Of the British air force's four planes, one (a Farman biplane) belonged to the officer who flew it. The other three were Government-owned Bristol Box Kites, contraptions of ash, spruce, cotton fabric, weighing half a ton and held together with...