Excerpted from AEROMASTERS, Celebrating a Century of the American Fighter Pilot
AEROMASTERS—the Pulitzer Prize-nominated, coffee-table/ narrative trilogy by Dino Garner and Liz Fetter—is now available on Amazon.com. A breathtaking tribute to a century of American fighter pilots. Reviewers call it “A literary and visual masterpiece of American history.”
To order the book: AEROMASTERS: Celebrating a Century of the American Fighter Pilot: Dino Garner, Liz Fetter: 9798218486778: Amazon.com: Books
Westin Birch “Bert” Hall was one of the most unforgettable characters from the Lafayette Escadrille.
He was born in 1885 on a Missouri farm, the son of a former Confederate soldier. He had traveled the world and made his living any way he could, including allegedly once working as a human cannonball for a circus.
He was driving a taxi in Paris when the war began but wasted no time in volunteering for the French Foreign Legion. Like (William) Thaw and others, he fought as a poilu, a common soldier, for several months before eventually transferring to aviation.
He later became one of the original seven founding members of the American escadrille.