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A review by komet2020
Wooden Crates & Gallant Pilots by Stuart E. Elliott
emotional
funny
informative
inspiring
reflective
tense
medium-paced
3.0
WOODEN CRATES & GALLANT PILOTS is a World War I memoir (published in 1974) that is slightly offbeat and somewhat philosophical. I came across it purely by accident a few weeks ago via another book I had bought [i.e., The Soft Mud of France] whose author was endeavoring to uncover the combat record of his father, who had been gravely wounded in a one-sided air battle over the front a few days before the Armistice that ended World War I. It just so happened that "Wooden Crates & Gallant Pilots" was mentioned as a resource in that book. That spurred me to find Elliott's book, which I did via one of the online booksellers for a reasonable price. It's a find rarer than hens' teeth because few surviving veterans of the U.S. Army Air Service (USAS) wrote memoirs.
Elliott was a Harvard graduate (Class of 1914) who forsook his graduate studies at MIT to enlist in what was then the Aviation Section of the U.S. Army Signal Corps in May 1917. He first attended ground school at MIT and then went on to receive his initial flight training at an army air base at Mineola, NY (Long Island). It was interesting to see as I read this book how haphazard some of Elliott's training was, as the Army struggled to develop and expand its aviation component. Frankly, the U.S. was caught flatfooted after entering World War I, for its military was woefully ill-prepared to adapt itself to the demands of what was then modern, mechanized warfare.
Towards the end of October 1917, Elliott and a contingent of pilot trainees sailed on a troopship out of New York City, arriving in France (following a brief stopover in England) where he received advanced training at the U.S. Army's massive complex of airfields known as the Third Aviation Instruction Center (3rd AIC) at Issodun, a village roughly 100 miles southeast of Paris. (At the time the flight training program at Issodun was in full flow, the 3rd AIC was then the largest airbase in the world.)
After surviving a number of close calls in training at Issodun and completing a gunnery course, Elliott was assigned to Orly Air Field near Paris, where he spent a few months ferrying aircraft of various types to frontline units.
The payoff for Elliott finally came on July 1, 1918 when he was ordered to "... proceed at once from 1st Air Depot to 2nd Pursuit Group, ... reporting on arriving to the Commanding Officer thereof, for assignment to duty with the 13th Squadron." The 13th Aero Squadron was a USAS fighter unit flying the tough and redoubtable SPAD XIII, a French fighter plane widely regarded as one of the best fighters to see combat on the Western Front. He saw considerable action over the remaining 4 months of the war, taking part in the Battles of St. Mihiel and the Meuse-Argonne. Indeed, Elliott shares with readers snippets of what frontline service in a fighter squadron was like, bouts of tedium punctuated with excitement, danger, tragedy, and at times hilarity.
While I enjoyed reading this book, I wish Elliott would have added photos from his training and service with the 13th Aero Squadron, along with the few sketches in the book he had made during his Army service. I think that the addition of photos (I like to think that Elliott had a photo album he had assembled during the war) would have given "Wooden Crates & Gallant Pilots" a greater immediacy. Hence, I'm giving this book a 3-star rating.
Elliott was a Harvard graduate (Class of 1914) who forsook his graduate studies at MIT to enlist in what was then the Aviation Section of the U.S. Army Signal Corps in May 1917. He first attended ground school at MIT and then went on to receive his initial flight training at an army air base at Mineola, NY (Long Island). It was interesting to see as I read this book how haphazard some of Elliott's training was, as the Army struggled to develop and expand its aviation component. Frankly, the U.S. was caught flatfooted after entering World War I, for its military was woefully ill-prepared to adapt itself to the demands of what was then modern, mechanized warfare.
Towards the end of October 1917, Elliott and a contingent of pilot trainees sailed on a troopship out of New York City, arriving in France (following a brief stopover in England) where he received advanced training at the U.S. Army's massive complex of airfields known as the Third Aviation Instruction Center (3rd AIC) at Issodun, a village roughly 100 miles southeast of Paris. (At the time the flight training program at Issodun was in full flow, the 3rd AIC was then the largest airbase in the world.)
After surviving a number of close calls in training at Issodun and completing a gunnery course, Elliott was assigned to Orly Air Field near Paris, where he spent a few months ferrying aircraft of various types to frontline units.
The payoff for Elliott finally came on July 1, 1918 when he was ordered to "... proceed at once from 1st Air Depot to 2nd Pursuit Group, ... reporting on arriving to the Commanding Officer thereof, for assignment to duty with the 13th Squadron." The 13th Aero Squadron was a USAS fighter unit flying the tough and redoubtable SPAD XIII, a French fighter plane widely regarded as one of the best fighters to see combat on the Western Front. He saw considerable action over the remaining 4 months of the war, taking part in the Battles of St. Mihiel and the Meuse-Argonne. Indeed, Elliott shares with readers snippets of what frontline service in a fighter squadron was like, bouts of tedium punctuated with excitement, danger, tragedy, and at times hilarity.
While I enjoyed reading this book, I wish Elliott would have added photos from his training and service with the 13th Aero Squadron, along with the few sketches in the book he had made during his Army service. I think that the addition of photos (I like to think that Elliott had a photo album he had assembled during the war) would have given "Wooden Crates & Gallant Pilots" a greater immediacy. Hence, I'm giving this book a 3-star rating.