RFC

These volumes bear tragic testimony to a diseased mind. A native of Argentina, Hume saw service in the First World War with the 1st County of London Yeomanry at Gallipoli, before transferring to the Royal Flying Corps (66 Squadron, RFC and RAF). In May 1917, while on his second patrol, he was shot down over France. It was while incarcerated in several POW camps (he escaped from one) that Hume's mental illness appears to have begun to manifest itself, and he was exchanged for German prisoners in August 1918.

'Here was I about 4 miles over Hunland, battling against a strong wind, fighting 7 Bosche scouts who were much smaller & faster than our old slow two seater. We were absolutely "cold meat" & they knew it.'A correspondence of exceptional interest and importance, in which Reader describes, in a series of 68 letters to his family, written over a period of sixteen months, his entire flying career, from the passing of his medical at Farnborough to his return from the Western Front.