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Allen Peck's WW I Letters Home tell of his patriotic volunteer
service for the brand-new U.S. Army Air Service to fight for his
country. Allen's American group was sent to France to be trained by
and to fly with a French escadrille. The airplanes were small,
flimsy, and slow, with open cockpits and no heat, and also no
oxygen masks. For young pilots these were exciting, challenging,
and for some, fatal months. Allen survived plane crashes, enemy
planes shooting bullets through his cockpit, and enemy ground fire.
A Croix de Guerre was earned for downing a German. But the trauma
was great. After Armistice, he wrote of the tragic toll on his
'original gang', Twelve of us reached the front, seven gone, three
wounded, one unheard from, and I was untouched. After November 11,
his letters tell of experiences at a French university, of
adventures at the American Embassy in London, and of helping with
Inter-Allied Games. He fell in love with and married a young French
girl. When his two-year enlistment was up, Allen chose at first to
stay in Paris. But, after five months, he headed back home to
America with his new wife, Marguerite.
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