24th Aero Squadron
Dublin Core
Title
24th Aero Squadron
Description
Officers of the 24th Aero Squadron pose in front of one of their French Salmson fighter planes on the grounds of the Vavincourt Aerodrome in France. Captain Spessard L. Holland (back row, standing far left) went on to a significant career in politics, serving as the 28th Governor of Florida from 1941 to 1945 and U.S. Senator from Florida from 1947 to 1971.
This photo was taken the day after the Armistice of November 11, 1918, which ended World War I. Presumably spirits were high among soldiers that day, but Squadron Armament Officer Fred P. Kirschner tells a different story of their arrival to the Vavincourt Aerodrome:
We arrived in Vavincourt at three o'clock in the morning and found the village filled [to capacity] with American infantrymen...We finally salvaged some stoves and the [Squadron] slept in the hangars...
I told [the billeting officer] I had no desire to sit up all night...He finally located what was supposed to be a room—with the cows, chickens, pigs, geese, etc. Being all in [i.e. exhausted], I did not argue. You can imagine how I felt towards that billeting officer the next morning when I awakened and found that where the army underwear is wont to part in the middle, was as beautiful a belt of bedbug bites on my body as you can picture...
This photo was taken the day after the Armistice of November 11, 1918, which ended World War I. Presumably spirits were high among soldiers that day, but Squadron Armament Officer Fred P. Kirschner tells a different story of their arrival to the Vavincourt Aerodrome:
We arrived in Vavincourt at three o'clock in the morning and found the village filled [to capacity] with American infantrymen...We finally salvaged some stoves and the [Squadron] slept in the hangars...
I told [the billeting officer] I had no desire to sit up all night...He finally located what was supposed to be a room—with the cows, chickens, pigs, geese, etc. Being all in [i.e. exhausted], I did not argue. You can imagine how I felt towards that billeting officer the next morning when I awakened and found that where the army underwear is wont to part in the middle, was as beautiful a belt of bedbug bites on my body as you can picture...
Creator
Spessard Lindsey Holland
Date
November 12, 1918
Relation
Spessard Lindsey Holland Papers
Identifier
03/MSS 76-5
Files
Collection
Citation
Spessard Lindsey Holland, “24th Aero Squadron,” War Stories: Soldiers' Lives In Their Own Words, accessed May 1, 2024, https://warstories.omeka.net/items/show/7.