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^[[November 5,1973]]

Dear Wanda, Jessica and Ted:

In my file from WWI I find three items dated May 20, 1918.  One is the flight record, mentioned in my last letter, of my final day with Squadron 40.  The other two are both travel orders, directing me to return to Amanty.  One, from the Service Aeronautique of the Fourth French Army, runs "Il est ordonné au Lieutenant Boyd de se rendre a Amanty (par gare de Gondrecourt, Meuse).  MOTIFS: Rejoindre son unite." The other order, headed Headquarters, Advance Section Air Service, A.E.F., included my name among seven being recalled from the Fourth French Army to report for duty with the 88th Aero Squadron at Amanty. I remember nothing whatever about receiving those orders, nor about my departure from the Ferme d'Alger, which must have been the 21st.  My best guess now is that I went in obedience to the French order, and found the American one lying in the post office at Amanty.  I base that guess on the usual performance of the army postal service.

At Amanty I found waiting for me several weeks' accumulation of mail. Included in it was a third travel order, this one from the headquarters of the First Division. Enclosed is a copy of that order.

It directed me to report to Saumur for service as an instructor. It was dated April 24, and therefore was nearly a month old, I felt sure that the inclusion of my name on that order was a mistake and I could see how it probably had occurred. Evidently the french instructors at Saumur, at least in the junior ranks, were being replaced by Americans.  Those who had been graduated from the first class with the highest grades were being recalled. Of the 30 or so of us who had been sent to the First Division those now being ordered back to Saumer constituted the honor roll. The six names on the order included four out of the five of highest standing in Number One section.  The fifth was accounted for later, as I shall relate.  The school must have requested us by name. First Division headquarters had simply complied, without checking to see what had become of us since we had joined it.

The order put me in a quandary. I was an artilleryman, carried still on the roll of the 7th F. A. in the First Division (as I still was when I was shot down).  I was at Amanty on detached service, and an order from the First Divison ought therefore to take precedence over the one that had assigned me to the 88th. Anyhow I located the office of the nascent 88th and met its commander Major Anderson, a pleasant