Book Blurb:
What were the odds of an intrepid youth from a rebellious British colony flying a combat aircraft for the Royal Air Force in the Great War? Could hopes and dreams survive at the cusp of an increasingly bleak conflict on the western front? Against all odds, Flying ace Indra Lal Roy (D.F.C. 1918) dreamt of flying airplanes and engaging in a new form of battle for the skies above German occupied France. He achieved ten victories in thirteen days. This is his story based upon true events from the war.
Book Buy Link: https://geni.us/ULVOeF
Author Bio:
Two time award winning author Samrat Mitra is the writer behind 'The Incidental Jihadi' (Silver Literary Titan Award in 2018)and 'Laddie Roy DFC (Gold Literary Titan Award in 2022).
'The Incidental Jihadi' was written after months of heart breaking research into the civil war in Syria. Needing a fresh hopeful perspective the book 'Laddie Roy' started to take shape based on the true events around India's only flying ace from the Great War: Lt. Indra Lal Roy. This book is about hope and undeniable optimism in the face of extreme odds as Indra Lal Roy faced to become a British flying ace, a young lad from colonial India.
His latest book 'Laddie Roy DFC' awarded and appreciated for a Literary Titan Gold Award is out on Amazon US and UK marketplace under the LR Price Publishers imprint and is a facts based account of WW1 Flying Ace Lt. Indra Lal Roy, the only Indian flying ace in the Great War. The story is one of true determination in the face of daunting challenges that he faced and how the Royal Flying Commission entrusted a young man from a rebellious colonial India with it's first ever range of combat worthy fighter aircraft: the S.E.5a. The book is essentially a snapshot of the time Indra Lal Roy spent in stellar company of WW1 aces such as James McCudden, Mike Mannock and George McElroy at the height of aerial warfare between 1916 to 1918. This is Samrat's second book and it has been published by one of UK's leading publishers named LR Price Publications in August 2022.
Editorial Review:
''Open my eyes
For the first and last time
Spreading my wings
I already knew how to fly
For today is the beginning of my end.''
[Elisha De La Rosa - 'The Mayfly']
The Mayfly is a very apt metaphor for the very brief life and career of the Indian air ace, Indra Lal Roy DFC of the RFC [Royal Flying Corps] [1898 - 1918]. It is an equally apt metaphor for all those young men he flew with and against, friend and foe, in the conflagration of the First World War. Aviation was itself in its infancy, with the very brief period of eleven short years separating the first powered flight and the addition of the new arm of aerial warfare to conflict. The RFC entered the war in 1914 with a total of 133 Officers and 36 aircraft. By the Armistice of 1918 there were a total of 114.000 personnel and 4.000 aircraft and a total of 150 Squadrons. There had been a total of 9.378 fatalities, a low number when held alongside casualties in the Army, but active service in the aerial wing of the war was held to be a guarantee of a very short life and a very violent ending! In ''Laddie Roy'' by Samrat Mitra, this simple fact of life is reinforced time and time again. One of the principal characters in the book, the real life figure of the highly decorated Mick Mannock [1887-1918] says to 'Laddie Roy [the hero of the book]: ''This bright young chappie will need to realise that he will either be blown to bits, or burnt to a cinder, eventually. That is the life of a pilot. Are you ready, Laddie? How shall it be? Bits or flames?'' This does seem to be an accurate and honest appraisal of the situation, given the truly appalling casualty rate and the terrifyingly brief life expectancy of the average pilot. High Command had forbidden the use of parachutes as being bad for morale as the pilots flew their incredibly flimsy machines of wire and wood, many of them death traps, in this infancy of aircraft. As as a consequence the intensely moody Mannock, with his nerves shot to pieces, always carried a service revolver on flights in order for him to have a choice in his death.
Indra Lal Roy was born in Calcutta [modern Kolkata] in 1898 into a very prominent family. His father was a senior Barrister and Director of Prosecutions and who organised the transfer of his family to England. 'Laddie', as he was commonly known, was one of six children and he and his elder brother were educated at the prestigious and ancient St Paul's School in Hammersmith in London. Upon the outbreak of the First World War, both he and his brother were keen to enlist. His early application to the RFC, when he was old enough, was originally rejected on the grounds of poor eyesight. This decision was overturned when 'Laddie' paid for a second opinion from a leading eye specialist and was finally accepted into the RFC in April 1917 when he was eighteen and commissioned as a Second Lieutenant. From the very beginning he is made painfully aware that his race and colour would, in the normal course of events, bar him from occupying such a position [throughout the narrative he is frequently referred to as ''brownie'' or ''the brown fellow'' and similar sobriquets]. As an early mentor tells him quite frankly: ''Under normal circumstances, neither the Royal Naval Air Service nor the Flying Corps would grant you a flying commission as a pilot. An Indian in some sort of hallowed position with a flying commission among the white and the British would be anathema for them.'' This attitude remains a constant throughout his brief service within the RFC and, indeed, in a branch of the armed forces that seemed to take a positive pleasure in its eccentricity and a reputation for unorthodoxy, his presence amongst the elite, and his background, is a source of relish. There is, for example, a strong Irish representation amongst the fighter 'aces' and he is welcomed into their ranks as an 'honorary Irishman'. 'Laddie', as is shown throughout the book, is something of a deep thinker. He has a standard response to these issues of race and colour: ''When I think of flying the skies, I can only imagine how boundaries of countries become meaningless to the eyes from a height, where the world cannot bind me to a space in the sky, like the way we are bound when on the ground, be it in England or in India.''
In fact, young Laddie is given plenty of time and opportunity to marshal his thoughts, views and opinions. On 6th December 1917 as a member of 56 Squadron, the S.E.5a he is piloting [almost a prototype] crashes in 'No Man's Land' and he regains consciousness in a French Morgue. Among his injuries are fractures to both his left and right femurs and he spends nearly six months in hospital, both in France and England. He spends his time developing his talent and skill for technical subjects such as aeronautical engineering and design and makes a large number of technical drawings to illustrate his thoughts and ideas. This skill, and his eye for detail, will make him stand out for reasons other than race and colour to his peers and superior officers, marking him out for preference in his 'mayfly' like and meteoric career! He is selected, almost 'poached', for 40 Squadron; a newly formed Squadron whose emblem was a broom and whose Latin motto was ''Hostem acolo expellere'' - ''to drive the enemy from the sky''. In the early days of the war, the principle function of the RFC was that of air reconnaissance and liaison with ground artillery. Equipped with the new [and as with all other aircraft] temperamental S.E.5a fighter airplane, the function of 40 Squadron was to actively seek out enemy aircraft; a response to the tactics of Baron Manfred von Richthofen and his fearsome 'Flying Circus'. Laddie seems the perfect fit for such a task and is placed under the tutelage of Captain George McElroy, a veteran 'ace' with 30 'kills' to his name, and with whom he forms a very strong bond. He also meets and associates with the [mostly doomed] stars within the RFC firmament. As a bonus to all historic aviation buffs, 'Laddie Roy' by Samrat Mitra is especially strong on the aircraft of the time - both allied and enemy - their specifications and details of their performance and, importantly, their failings and weak points! The aviation fanatic will derive great satisfaction in googling these aircraft for further details and images. Equally, there are plenty of vivid descriptions of actual aerial warfare; short and bloody and usually fatal encounters resulting in the death of one pilot or another in the disintegration of an aircraft or in an irreversible spiralling to the ground. These encounters are short, brutal and powerfully written:
......''the green of the Phaltz's canopy, so still against the multi dimensional reddish-brown backdrop that had become the sky. Laddie felt at peace with himself, wondering what the Hun must feel now that his fate lay in Laddie's Aldis gunsight? Someday it could well be him in the Hun's place, hoping for a desperate turn of fate to stay alive for another day; what then would be the use of clarity of vision that he was experiencing now in aerial combat? Effortlessly, he took aim at the cross marked tail and fired a burst that got the engine smoking, the Phaltz slowly stopped spinning as it went out of control. Just to make sure, Laddie dropped a further few hundred feet and fired again into the stricken Phaltz to settle the Hun's fate. His head span a little on account of the tight spiral of pursuit downwards, but he watched as the enemy aircraft crashed into the ground within a forest, bursting into a huge fireball.....''
From the literary point of view, the strength of the book lies in the exploration of the 'mind set' of these very young and fatalistically minded young men, many of whom were in their early twenties. Young Indra Lal Roy is himself not yet twenty and, as he gains experience with 40 Squadron, he increasingly comes to assume the same mantle as his friends and colleagues. He reveals that he too is subject to the same mood swings of elation and brooding introspection, the fatalistic acceptance of the deaths of comrades and, in the same fashion as Achilles, a gloomy realisation of his own mortality. This frame of mind leads him to take unacceptable risks. Young 'Laddie - ''the brownie'' is clearly an 'ace' in the making and this, equally clearly, is his dearest wish and shapes his behaviour. Again and again, in this clearly intensively researched book, the reader is made privy to the thoughts and fears of Laddie and the people around him, perhaps as they return from a mission like some collection of heroes from ''The Iliad'' who, either in jubilation or in valediction, seek to celebrate or else to mourn with copious amounts of alcohol in the Officers' Bar; each of them painfully aware of their own mortality: 'Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die!'' All around him there are signs of individuals battling their own inner demons and, indeed, Laddie is no exception to this. He has, for example, the very strong [and painfully accurate ] sensation that he is being stalked by his own appointed nemesis. This is the young and determined German pilot, Oberlieutnant Harald Auffarth in a personally customised Phaltz DVII [customised in much the same spirit of manner that Laddie has customised his own S.E.5a fighter plane]. The German stalks Laddie and analyses his tactics:
The Oberlieutnant had heard that among these enterprising British pilots was also an incredibly talented colonial brown skin who had somehow managed to reach the skies, striking a blow on behalf of the King and his country......Whose King? and whose country? he asked himself, dwelling on the paradox of a colonial young chap fighting for his master, when in fact he should be fighting for the freedom of his own country!.....The spirited young Indian had caught his attention and his ascension must have been quite an inspiring story for ethnic groups fighting for the British. It is he then [Laddie] that must be taken down before his legend would inspire several more under dogs to attempt to claim their glory in this war. Fighting for whom, indeed. Fighting for what and to what end? That was the question that he would need to nip in the bud......''
On one occasion, it is ordered that Laddie, now an established 'ace', on a non-flying day, be appointed Censorship Officer and to go through the mail of all his brother Officers and remove all confidential or 'non-motivational and otherwise disloyal remarks from the letters home whilst everybody else goes to the Pub! He is truly shocked when he encounters a letter from one of his especial idols, the 'ace' Mick Mannock. This man, the Commander of 85 Squadron, is attributed with a total of 61 'kills' and is highly decorated with a V.C. [Victoria Cross], the Distinguished Service Order with two Bars and the Military Cross, again with one Bar. As Laddie reads the man's letter home, he realises that his hero's nerve is shot to pieces:
''I shot the pilot in three places and wounded the observer in the side. The machine was shot to pieces and a little black and tan dog, who was with the observer, was also killed. The observer escaped death. The pilot was horribly mutilated. I felt exactly like a murderer......... I don't quite know how long my nerves will last out. I am rather old now [Mannock was thirty one at the time] as airmen go, for fighting. These times are so horrible that occasionally, I feel that life is not worth hanging onto.''
Indra Lal Roy, popularly called 'Laddie', was not the only Indian to have served as a flier in the RFC in the First World War. Sardar Handit Singh Malik, for example, was the first Indian to receive a Commission and, in the very early days of aerial warfare and, before the time that combat in the skies became 'sophisticated', is accredited with shooting down six enemy aircraft armed only with a revolver and rifle. 'Laddie', on the other hand, is the first and only Indian 'ace'. He was shot down and killed on July 22nd 1918 by his nemesis; he was only nineteen years of age. In just 170 hours of flying time he had become India's only air ace of the First World War, with a tally of five aircraft destroyed in the air [with one shared] and five aircraft out of control [again with one shared]. ''Laddie Roy'' by Samrat Mitra is of course the story of the tragically short life of Indra Lal Roy. It is, equally, the story of all the other many young men in the Service who did not live to see the Armistice; the young men described by the poet W.B. Yeats. This review began with an extract from a poem. It is perhaps appropriate to end with another.
''I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere here among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love.
Nor Law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public man, nor cheering crowds.
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds.''
[''An Irish Airman foresees his Death: W.B. Yeats]
*****
“Laddie Roy” by Samrat Mitra receives four stars from The Historical Fiction Company
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