Luck on the Wing: Thirteen Stories of a Sky Spy — John Shaqi
Luck on the Wing: Thirteen Stories of a Sky SpyHaslett, Elmer
History
Luck on the Wing: Thirteen Stories of a Sky Spy
Haslett, Elmer
World War, 1914-1918 -- Aerial operations; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, American
The other plane had gained considerable altitude and after about fifteen
minutes I was able to orient myself by means of my map and to know that
the aerodrome was directly beneath me. We had gotten about three hundred
meters above and two hundred meters behind the first plane. In a few
moments the first plane headed due north and we followed. Over to my
right I saw very plainly Souilly, which was later destined to play such
an important part in the history of the American Army, being the
Headquarters of our First Army in the Argonne drive. In a few moments
more I saw below me the shell-torn country and the two peaks known as
“Hill 304” and “Dead Man Hill”—to the French they are known as “Trois
Cent Quatre” and “Mort Homme”—which were so prominent in the fighting
around Verdun.
Only a few days before I had visited these same places on the ground and
I had seen the myriads of human bones in that mighty cemetery which,
though originally properly interred, were being continually brought to
the surface by the constant and incessant artillery fire. I thought at
the time how terrible it must be to live day and night in the trenches
of that graveyard, knowing not but that in the next instant you,
yourself, might be the one destined to replace the remains which, from
four years of exposure, were crumbling into the dust. On that visit the
thing that impressed me was the minuteness of the individual, for both
German and French, though the deadliest of enemies in life, found a
common resting place, side by side, in the same yard of earth for which
they had given their lives to gain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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