Flying for France : with the American escadrille at Verdun . ican escadrillehad brought down four Germans, andhad cleared the way for their squad-ron returning from Oberndorf. Whenthe train pulled out the next day thestation platform was packed by khaki-clad pilots waving good-bye to theirfriends the FLYING FOR FRANCE The escadrille passed through Parison its way to the Somme front. Thefew members who had machines flewfrom Luxeuil to their new post. AtParis the pilots were reenforced bythree other American boys who hadcompleted their training. They were:Fred Prince, who ten months be
Flying for France : with the American escadrille at Verdun . ican escadrillehad brought down four Germans, andhad cleared the way for their squad-ron returning from Oberndorf. Whenthe train pulled out the next day thestation platform was packed by khaki-clad pilots waving good-bye to theirfriends the FLYING FOR FRANCE The escadrille passed through Parison its way to the Somme front. Thefew members who had machines flewfrom Luxeuil to their new post. AtParis the pilots were reenforced bythree other American boys who hadcompleted their training. They were:Fred Prince, who ten months beforehad come over from Boston to servein aviation with his brother Norman;Willis Haviland, of Chicago, who leftthe American Ambulance for the lifeof a birdman, and Bob Soubrian, ofNew York, who had been transferredfrom the Foreign Legion to the flyingcorps after being wounded in theChampagne offensive. Before its arrival in the Somme the escadrille had always been quartered in towns and the life of the pilots was all that could be desired in the way of 114. FLYING FOR FRANCE comforts. We had, as a result, cometo believe that we would wage only ade luxe war, and were unprepared forany other sort of campaign. The in-troduction to the Somme was a rudeawakening. Instead of being quar-tered in a villa or hotel, the pilots weredirected to a portable barracks newlyerected in a sea of mud. It was set in a cluster of similarbarns nine miles from the near-est town. A sieve was a water-tight compartment in comparisonwith that elongated shed. The dampcold penetrated through every crack,chilling one to the bone. There wereno blankets and until they were pro-cured the pilots had to curl up in theirflying clothes. There were no arrange-ments for cooking and the Americansdepended on the other escadrilles for115 FLYING FOR FRANCE food. Eight fighting units were lo-cated at the same field and our ever-generous French comrades saw to itthat no one went hungry. The thickmist, for which the Somme i
Size: 1214px × 2059px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., boo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectworldwar19141918
