Viewing page 111 of 171

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

-2-

was going on. Someone told him we were being bombed. He said "My God! Think of the letters I'll have to censor tomorrow." Then he went back to sleep.
In an earlier letter I wrote that Gondrecourt was about 50 miles from the front. Since writing that I have found an old road map that forces me to revise that estimate. Gondrecourt (and Amanty) is in the northeastern corner of France. Toward the east the front was about 50 miles away. But to the north it was only about thirty miles. In that direction lay the south face of the St. Mihiel salient. That was the sector on which the 88th first went into action, so when we moved out from Amanty we did not go far. We occupied a field near a village called Ourches, on the Meuse about 15 miles north of Amanty.
Our planes were British-made Sopwith two-seaters, of a model that was obsolescent. We were however going to a quiet sector, where the Germans also used their oldest planes. And in retrospect it seemed just as well that our pilots got ^[[b]] [[strikethrough]] v [[/strikethrough]] roken in on Sopwiths rather than on the better and more expensive Salmsons. The planes had to be outfitted with guns and radio. That was done after we moved to Ourches. Our pilots were encouraged to take a few trial flights just to get the feel of the Sops.
The first damage suffered by the 88th was not a result of enemy action. It involved a collision between one of our planes and the commander's Cadillac. Command of the squadron carried with it a fringe benefit that nowadays we associate with cabinet members or executives of ITT. Major Anderson had a Cadillac and a chauffeur. You should understand, however, that the Cadillac of 1918 was not the kind of vehicle that GM offers us under that name nowadays. the only glass used in its construction was in its windshield and its lighting fixtures. Like all the other military passenger autos that I can recall from WW1, it was a "touring car". (Remember that expression? My grandchildren probably never heard it and would not know what it once meant.) The 1918 Cadillac had no radio, no heater and of course no air conditioning. It burned fuel primarily for locomotion, not to enhance the comfort and dignity of its passengers. But I digress.
One of our pilots, Joe Carr, was approaching the field for a landing. His approach was rather low, but there would have been no