Book Description

Allen Peck's WW I Letters Home 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. 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." 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. 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. 65 names of individuals with whom he flew or interacted are indexed.