Captain W. E. Johns was born in Hertfordshire in 1893. He flew with the Royal Flying Corps in the First World War and made a daring escape from a German prison camp in 1918. Between the wars he edited Flying and Popular Flying and became a writer for the Ministry of Defence. The First Biggles story, Biggles the Camels are Coming was published in 1932, and W. E. Johns went on to write a staggering 102 Biggles titles before his death in 1968.