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Their victories were scored high in the air above the trenches and captured the imagination of the public back home desperate for good news.
Now, more than 90 years later, the service records of those daring First World War pilots live on in archives made public for the first time.
The files of 90,000 RAF officers are available from today at the National Archives website and are searchable by name and date of birth.Stories of courage, risk and sacrifice are contained within the official acronyms and bare lists of dates that make up the records.
The infamous German pilot Red Baron, Manfred von Richthofen, who racked up 80 'kills' throughout the war, was the highest scoring 'Ace' of the First World War.But snapping at his heels was the British pilot, Major Edward 'Mickey' Mannock who clocked up 74 victories making him Britain's top 'Ace' and among the highest scorers in the war.
His record notes the day the enemy caught up with him and he crashed behind German lines.
The event is recorded in his service record only as - 'Missing, believed dead, 26.7.18'. He was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.Another RAF hero, Cecil Lewis, is featured in the release.
His service record shows that he joined the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) in October 1915 having lied about his age at a time when the average service life of a British fighter pilot was measured in weeks.
He qualified as an 'Ace' by downing eight aircraft during May and June of 1917.
Later he went on to write his personal account of flying in the war, Sagittarius Rising, which inspired the 1976 film Aces High, co-founded the BBC and won an Academy Award for his part in the screen adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion.
He served again in the RAF during the Second World War and died in London aged in his late 1990s.
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