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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

100 years ago in Spokane: Letter home describes perils of training to be Army fighter pilot

Training as a U.S. Army aviator was filled with perils, according to a letter written home to Spokane by Sgt. Willis A. Boggs Jr., the Spokane Daily Chronicle reported on May 22, 2017. (Spokesman-Review archives)

Training as a U.S. Army aviator was filled with perils, according to a letter written home to Spokane by Sgt. Willis A. Boggs Jr.

Boggs had just passed his exam for a commission in the aviator corps at the aviation school on Long Island. He would soon become a lieutenant.

“We have a big camp here, 250 officers and mechanics, 50 planes and more arriving daily,” Boggs wrote. “We get up at 4:30 in the morning and spend the entire day studying and working in the technical departments. It is a wonderful sight to see all the machines in the air at once and we have many thrills; we smash up an average of three to four planes a week.

“We have lost some boys. Last week, two of my pals fell 3,000 feet and were killed while I was in the air, but we did not stop flying and I was ordered up again immediately afterward. Believe me, it is not a pleasant sensation to be flying over the bonfire of their wrecks.”

Boggs told his parents that he would be sent to France soon.

From the home front: The Spokane City Council voted to spend $200 on a new flagpole to be erected just west of the Monaghan monument on Riverside Avenue.

The Spokane Patriotic League had earlier offered to give the city a “big new municipal flag” if the council would erect a new flagpole and “see that the flag was kept flying for the duration of the war.” The council agreed.

The pole was to be dedicated on June 4, 1917, which was “registration day,” the day men had to register for the draft.

The dedication ceremony would include the firing of a cannon belonging to Jacob “Dutch Jake” Goetz.