Letter from Arthur Huger, A.E.F. Transportation Service, describing his first flight with a South Carolinian pilot
Book 1, Page 475 ·1917–1918
Transcription
A continuation page of a letter written on American Expeditionary Forces stationery. Printed heading:
AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES HEADQUARTERS SERVICES OF SUPPLY TRANSPORTATION SERVICE
The body begins mid-sentence:
… and had dinner at the [mess?] there and then went up in the plane with him. We were up for a long time and came down once then went up again. We went miles and miles over the countryside and the city of [illegible] high and as it was my first experience I was delighted and proud. I was so glad that I could go first with a South Carolinian. He is a beautiful Pilot and seems at all times to have his machine under absolute and accurate Control. You should be very proud of him and I know you are.
These Germans have “hell” on the way for them and they’ll save a lot of trouble if they’ll all kneel down now, darn 'em!, and ask to be treated as well as we can treat them under the circumstances — if they don’t — God help them — for our boys are out for scalps and are going to get them!
Yours always, Arthur Huger.
AI Notes
A single sheet of stationery printed at the top with the heading ‘AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES / HEADQUARTERS SERVICES OF SUPPLY / TRANSPORTATION SERVICE,’ covered in a dense forward-slanting cursive hand in blue ink. The page is evidently the second leaf of a longer letter — it begins mid-sentence (‘and had dinner …’). The writer describes having dinner at the mess, then taking his first flight as a passenger with an Army pilot, going up for a long time over the countryside and over a city, with the pilot a fellow South Carolinian. The letter closes with a defiant aside about the Germans. Signed ‘Yours always / Arthur Huger.’ The A.E.F. letterhead places this in 1917–1918.
The Services of Supply and Transportation Service of the A.E.F. were established in France in 1917; the stationery dates the letter to the First World War. The South Carolinian pilot referenced is unidentified at this scan but was clearly known to the addressee, most probably another member of the FitzSimons family.