Indra Lal Roy dreamt of flying in the skies as a pilot, an impossible dream for a young Indian boy from colonial India when the Great war gave him an extraordinary opportunity to carry out flight duties to engage enemy aircraft in combat in a new form of warfare: the battle for the skies above German occupied France in 1918. From British occupied India, the family of Piera Lal Roy had migrated to London, England at a time when revolutionary ideas of freedom were gripping major cities across India. One of the Roy family would create history that many now have forgotten: Indra Lal Roy would become the one and only Indian Flying Ace to be awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in the Great war. This is his story from when he aspired to contribute to the war effort in a capacity that he only dreamt of as a bright young scholar from St. Paul's, London. Laddie's story is one of crowded glory where several legends he came across, those who inspired him and those who challenged his perception of morality in an increasingly bleak war are brought back in authentic detail. The passing snapshots of those flying legends have been kept as authentic and factual as possible and flight details faithfully reproduced as entered in AIR Flight records. It is the time between these flight missions that have been expanded not just to shine a light on his extraordinary story but on all those extraordinary men who made the biggest sacrifices they could make in the struggle for control over the skies during the First World War. The book is based on actual flight records taken off the Imperial War Museum in London, several audio excerpts were heard, namely of Captain Lewis and a few others to determine the temperament of the officers at the time which forms the basis of the nature of communication between them in more informal circumstances. The plane SE5a was thoroughly researched for its design both for its positives and disadvantages to make its flight representation on the book as accurate as possible as are the German combat planes which to the informed reader should give a feel of the authenticity of this inspiring true story of India's only flying ace, 'Laddie' Indra Lal Roy(D.F.C.).
