The Millionaires' Unit

the long version

In 1916, just thirteen years after the Wright brothers' first flight, a group of twenty-eight college students, and sons of America's early 20th century aristocracy, decided to try the sport of motorized flight and formed a campus flying club. The Millionaires' Unit is the story of a gilded generation of young men from the zenith of privilege: a Rockerfeller, the son of the head of the Union Pacific Railroad, several who counted friends and relatives among presidents and statesmen of the day. They had it all and, remarkably by modern standards, they were prepared to risk it all to fight a distant war in France. For readers of Flyboys, The greatest generation, or Flags of our fathers, this patriotic, romantic, absorbing book is narrative military history of the best kind.