I was born at an interesting time, June 1918 to be exact. At the time my father was in Brittany, France, serving as Commandant of Training at a field near Issoudon. There they were teaching artillary officers to trust aerial observers. His Commanding Officer was Maj. Carl Spaatz. The field Adjutant was Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker, whom I grew up knowing as “Uncle Rick”.

After the war, The surviving Pilots, so few that they all knew each other, would visit in our home whenever they happened to pass through Chicago. Mother and Dad entertained such people as Spaatz, Uncle Rick, Maj. Hap Arnold, and Billy Mitchel. There were others, but I was a boy of 8 or 10, who didn’t pay much attention, I do remember that Uncle Rick showed up unexpectedly one time for Sunday dinner with his friend, Jimmy Doolittle in tow.

All of this seems to have led me to become a Pilot in the 15th Air Force during WWII, in which Spaatz was commanding the 8th Air Force in England and Arnold commanding the U S Army Air Corps.

Ours has been spoken of as the greatest generation. If we were, perhaps it was the strengthening effect of the Great Depression that may have conditioned us.

Now an old man, I have compiled my reminiscences of an interesting life. Growing up in America during that Depression and before WWII was unlike anything since. This story, “GRANDFATHER STORIES” is broken into several parts, because this life has seen so very much.

Other readers have enjoyed my stories. I hope you will, too.