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^[[20]]     November 5, 1973

Dear Alice:

In my file from WW1 I find three items dated May 20, 1918.  One is the flight record, mentioned in my last letter, of my missions with Denis.  The other two are both travel orders, directing me to return to Amanty.  One was from the Service Aeronautique of the Fourth French army.  It runs "Il est ordonné au Lieutenant Boyd de se rendre a Amanty (par Gare de Gondrecourt, Meuse).  MOTIFS: Rejoindre son unite."  The other was from Advance Section. Air Service, A. E. F.  The French order had left unnamed the unit I was to rejoin, but the American one was more specific.  I was to report at Amanty to an outfit I had never heard of, the 88th Aero Squadron.

I remember nothing whatever about receiving those orders, nor about my departure from the Ferme d'Alger.  My best guess now is that I went in obedience to the French order, and that after reaching Amanty I found the American order lying in the postoffice there.  I base that guess on the usual behavior of the army postal service.  Any^[[h]]ow I found at Amanty several weeks' accumulation of mail.  It included still another travel order, this from the headquarters of the First [[strikethrough]]Dision[[/strikethrough]] ^[[Division]].  It directed me to go to Saumur to serve as an instructor.  (A capy of that order is enclosed.  The stamp on it merely shows that the military police in Paris were on the job, checking the credentials of a any Americans arriving there).  The order was dated April 24, and was therefore nearly a month old.

I felt sure that my name had been included in that order by mistake, since my practical experience with the artillery had been limited to three weeks in January.  Nevertheless I was an artilleryman, carried on the rolls of 7th F. A. of the First Division (I still belonged to that regiment when I was shot down in September).  I was merely on detached duty with the air service, and therefore felt that the order from the First Division had to take precedence over any that came from the aviation.  I was in a quandary.

I found the office of the nascent 88th squadron, and reported to its commander.  He was Major Anderson, a pleasant West Pointer who seemed about my age (then 24).  I explained to him my conflicting orders, hoping that he would do a little telephoning on my account.