ISBN: 0595362230 9780595362233

Category: Biography & Autobiography / Memoirs

Page count: 276

<i>Allen Peck's WW I Letters Home</i> tell of his patriotic volunteer service for the brand-new U.S. Army Air Service to fight for his country. Allen's American group was sent to France to be trained by and to fly with a French escadrille. The airplanes were small, flimsy, and slow, with open cockpits and no heat. No oxygen masks. For young pilots these were exciting, challenging, and for some, fatal months.</p> <p>Allen survived plane crashes, enemy planes shooting bullets through his cockpit, and enemy ground fire. A Croix de Guerre was earned for downing a German. But the trauma was great. After Armistice, he wrote of the tragic toll on his "original gang""Twelve of us reached the front, seven gone, three wounded, one unheard from, and I was untouched."</p> <p>After November 11, his letters tell of experiences at a French university, of adventures at the American Embassy in London, and of helping with Inter-Allied Games.</p> <p>He fell in love with and married a young French girl. When his two-year enlistment was up, Allen chose at first to stay in Paris. But, after five months, he headed back home to America with his new wife, Marguerite.</p> <p>65 names of individuals with whom he flew or interacted are indexed.</p>