Letters From the Front

Dated:

Letter from the Front

Inspector Boyce has received the following interesting letter from Flight Sub-Lieutenant A. M. Shook, as to his first long flight in France.

France, April 3, 1916

Dear Mr. Boyce, --I have received another packet of papers from you. Many thanks. It is fine to get news from home. You have kept me so well supplied with papers I feel very much indebted to you.

I have just returned from my longest and hardest flight. So I will just tell you about it. There is no military importance attached to it but it may prove interesting to you. Six other pilots and myself were sent to Paris to bring back new machines. Four have returned safely, two crashed and one is not yet back. So you see it is quite an undertaking. The course we followed is about 200 miles and it took me three hours and fifteen minutes.

It took us nearly all day to go there by train, and we spent two pleasant days in Paris. I enjoyed every minute of my stay there. I think you said you were there when you were in Europe. You can just fancy our motor ride. We went down "Rue de Paix", "Rue de Boulogne" through the "Arch de Triomphe", through the "Bois de Boulogne", (a woods in the very heart of Paris, full of lakes, streams. fountains, cascades, beautiful drives, and magnificent trees which were just coming in leaf). It was wonderful. We passed "Long Champ" the world famous racecourse, we went through Versailles, and saw the "Palace de Louis Philippe." We saw the artificial lake which was built in a single night to please Louis XIV. We saw the wonderful aqueduct which feeds the fountains of the Palace. We them went to the aerodome and tested out engines, swung the compasses, fixed the maps and made a trial flight. Then back to Paris, and visited place after place. It was certainly a treat. It was a service car, and the driver was a French soldier who knew Paris very well.

Next morning we went to the aerodrome and prepared to start for home. I was third to leave, but I had just nicely got up 2000 feet when my engine failed. Just fancy, engine failure over Paris. There is always, in the morning, a heavy mist over Paris, and I was unable to see the aerodrome. But I got back. How I do not know. Any way I landed in the aerodrome and had my engine attended to and set off again at 11.45 a.m. I got up about 4,000 feet and headed in the proper course set off for Flanders. I couldn't see the ground but I knew I was over Paris. In a few minutes the mist cleared and I could see the winding Seine. I followed it for fifteen miles then for three hours I flew over France. Just fancy, flying over a perfectly strange country, passing village after village, town after town, an occasional city, lakes, rivers, forests, in a course parallel with the French and British lines. I did not know the country at all but was able to locate various places on the map and so keep on my course and make allowance for the side wind. It is a queer sensation. Five thousand feet high, watching eagerly for any land mark which you could use in locating a town or place on the map, wondering if the engine will last out the trip, watching for any change in direction of wind, keeping an eye on the compass. You work the controls automatically and you seem to have oceans of time for everything. France is a beautiful country. I wouldn't have missed that trip for anything, and I shall never forget it. It was wonderful to me.

I got home at 3 p.m. only to discover that I must take the machine to another aerodrome. But I got over there in a twenty minute flight, and handed over the machine to the proper authorities. I felt a little proud of having made a non-stop flight from Paris. But it is not an extra-ordinary performance, and on our fast machines it can be done in two hours with a favourable wind.

My address is the same

co. Royal Naval Air Service, Randvoll House, Charing Cross Rd., London, W.C., England.