High Adventure

A Narrative of Air Fighting in France

By: James Norman Hall

Narrated by: Mark F. Smith

James Norman Hall arrived in Paris with the intention of joining the Foreign Legion. After a chance meeting with the man who was to become his good friend, he suddenly found himself signing papers to serve in the Lafayette Escadrille, that corps of American adventurers who fought in the skies above France before the U.S. entered WWI.

Hall kept a diary of his experiences and from it he extracted this narrative. We see him struggle to learn his craft in an avion de chasse from French instructors despite having no knowledge of French, follow him in his baptism of fire, and revel with him in the joy of flying during these first years of widespread aviation. This is his High Adventure.

Public Domain (P)2013 Mark F. Smith