Unknown Warrior

Unknown Warrior
The Search For Australia’s Greatest Ace

Mike Rosel

ISBN: 978 1 78346 394 7

Format: Hardback

Extent: 130 Pages

Black & White Photographs

Dimensions: 163mm x 240mm

Robert Alexander Little was Australia’s greatest fighter ‘ace’ of WWI , and the eighth overall ‘ace’ of all British Commonwealth pilots of the Great War, being credited with 47 victories with the Royal Naval Air Service and the Royal Air Force. Astonishingly, however, very little is documented about his extraordinary career, and he remains almost unknown beyond Australia and 208 Squadron aficionados. Hence the subtitle of the book: The Unknown Warrior.

Australian historian Mike Rosel sets out to remedy this in a detailed biography in which he interlaces and extrapolates what he describes as ‘the jigsaw of Little paperwork and a dearth of fact’ with fascinating and colourful research surrounding Little’s upbringing, education and military service. This provides a vivid picture of the environment in which he grew up, trained and operated until his untimely death on 27 May 1918 at the age of only 22, whilst in pursuit of a German Gotha bomber.

Accounts are included of his education at Scotch College and his early employment as a commercial traveller for his father before his acquisition of a Private Pilot’s Licence and his training as a military pilot with the RNAS. There are many engaging accounts of his service with Naval 8 Squadron from contemporaries such as Reggie Soar, with whom he flew many missions, including the famous occasion on which he was seen to fight solo with 11 Germans in a characteristic show of grit and determination (and perhaps a certain degree of recklessness).

Mike Rosel’s book is an extremely engaging and enjoyable account of one of Naval 8 Squadron’s and the Commonwealth’s greatest heroes. It is very highly recommended.

Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S70 2AS

First Published: 2012