May 19, 1918

Pa,

Have you ever noticed how life can be sweet one minute and really bitter the next? I got to experience that today and it was sure a bitter pill to swallow. First, let me tell you about the sweet. Gen’l Mitchell telephoned me after our morning patrol to tell me that I’ve been promoted to Lt. Colonel and that he sure is proud of me and the job I’m doing. I also downed another Hun this morning and I’m just waiting for the confirmation, so that was good.

Now for the bitter and this bitter overpowers all of the sweet this morning. I’ve written about Luf many times in my letters to you and he has been a friend of mine since I joined up last year. Well, we lost him today. It was horrible Pa, it was just horrible. We had just finished lunch when we all heard the sounds of approaching aeroplanes. We ran outside and saw two Hun Rumplers flying pretty low over our field. Thomas was the first to reach the aeroplanes and he took off to attack them. The rest of us watched from the field but after several attacks it was clear to us that Thomas had fired all of his ammunition and hadn’t had any luck in bringing down the Huns. It was then that Raoul raced over to get into the air to carry on the attack, but his plane wasn’t ready and so he took Carl’s. It wasn’t long before he caught up with the Huns and began to attack. After a couple of passes he turned away and we wondered that maybe his guns had jammed. After a few minutes he was back at the attack and we thought this time he had them. It was then that we saw his machine burst into flames. He flew straight for about three or four seconds and then we were horrified to see a figure fall from the aeroplane. He landed near a stream in a poor old lady’s garden. Some think he jumped, some think he fell out because maybe his safety belt wasn’t fastened. We will never know, but all I know for certain is I lost a dear friend. As if that wasn’t bitter enough, it gets worse. This afternoon we lost Rupert. It was my fault really, I shouldn’t have allowed him to fly because he was spitting mad about the death of Luf and I should have known he would do something foolish. Nobody told me that command would be so heavy, just this week we lost Theo, Leonard, Luf and Rupert and there doesn’t seem to be any end in sight. I hope my letter isn’t too upsetting to you and Ma, but I have to get this burden off my chest. I’ll write again soon and hopefully I’ll have happier things to tell you.

Your loving son,

Abner

PS. I thought you might like a photograph of Luf for your collection.