Viewing page 100 of 171

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

October 30, 1973

Dear Wanda, Jessica and Ted:

The last two entries on my flight record from the Permed'Alger read thus:
"Lundi...20/5...avec Bieut. Denis ... Reglage... 0:20
"[[ditto for Lundi...20/5...avec Bieut. Denis ... Reglage...]]" 2:15

They recall a morning of frustration, of the most unpleasant experience I had in France until the day of my final crash.  Note ^[[that]] I made two flights on the same day and with the same pilot.  He was the commander of the squadron.  Our flight in the morning lasted only 20 minutes.  That was because Denis broke off our mission in a rage and came home.  When we landed he was so angry that he refused to speak to me.  I knew that my time with his squadron was about to end. (actually the order recalling me was dated that day). It looked as though I was going to be sent back to Amanty in disgrace.  But before we set out on our afternoon flight Denis and I were friends again. I was restored to good standing and the mission went off smoothly.

"Réglage" meant Americans of WW2 called "spotting" artillery fire.  But in WW2 the spotter could converse freely with men on the ground by radio telephone.  That simplified the job so much that I am told it was performed by one man flying alone and combining the functions of pilot and observer. In WW1 he could not have done that. The radio telephone did not yet exist.  In a letter last August I described our means of communication in the AEF between ground and air. They were so clumsy and complicated that no one could have attended to them while piloting a plane.. On that morning we had a language barrier added to the technological difficulties..

In trench warfare reglage was needed from time to time because guns tended to settle into the ground, causing shifts in the direction of fire.  It was not because the batteries wanted to shoot at new targets. The French battle maps were so accurate that if a gun were properly laid on one target it could with confidence be shifted to bear on others in the same area.. On the bulletin board at the squadron was a list of 8 or 10 "reference targets" on the German side.  These were not necessarily objects the French wanted to destroy. They were rather chosen because they were conspicuous, easily identified by an observer in the air so that he could locate shellbursts in relation to ^[[them]]. I carried  a copy of that list in my pocket.  That morning we were scheduled to work on target #4, the intersection of two trenches a quarter-mile or so from the front line.