27th Aero Daily Ops Log

[ONEALM]

Greetings forumites -

Does anyone have acces to - or know someone who does - the daily operations logs for the 27th Aero for the July 1918 period ? If the logs do not exist, do the daily orders ?

Clamagoredon and I are desperately attempting to locate the final resting place of New Jersey native Malcolm Gunn and believe the oft quoted location of his loss "vourbin" is a mis-transrcription of Vauxbuin. Clamagoredon has taken great pains to discover which German ground unit was near Vauxbuin during July, but before we start asking our German Archivists to dig into the unit history for clues, we would really like a confirmation of the 27th's mission on 16 July.

I do not have access to Gorrell, but do not recall that it has the daily ops logs like the 95th Aero does.

The family is very interested in discovering where Malcolm is buried and any help here would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advanc,
Mike

[stephen]

Hi Mike. I don't think that an operations log was standard for every squadron in every case. As you can imagine, I have searched desperately for such a logbook for the 27th but the only one I've been able to locate is for the 147th. On the other hand, I believe I have a reference from Alfred Grant III (Capt Grant's son) that he at one time may have had just such a log for the 27th. Rumors, rumors. Let me get home this coming weekend (I'm on a Luke research trip - yes, another one - as I write this and have been gone for a week) and I'll look up my records from the Grant family and see what I can find.

If we can come up with an operations log for the 27th, that sound you hear will be me jumping for joy on my rooftop.

[StephenLawson]

It is rumored that he does a mean Irish jig. But I'm thinking more a fiddler on the roof type.

[Skippy]

Dear Mike,
Captain Lewis was actually planning to answer your email concerning photos of Gunn, but I'm afraid he's spending the weekend in our nation's capital outing plaigiarists in the State Department...

He did instruct me to tell you to check OTF v3 #4 pp330-331 for no less than three (3) photos in which Gunn is seen and identified; all of these photos are group shots of 27th personnel.

One photo in particular, on p330 (top), shows a fairly well-known image of 27th Sqn members standing in back of N.28 #8 (black numeral); Gunn in 2nd (second) from right, standing a bit in back of the group, clearly visible over the leading edge of the rudder.

I would have scanned it for you, but I'm afraid I didn't have room enough for a scanner, just this back issue of OTF, in my pouch...

Always the best,
Skip

[ONEALM]

Skippy -

Thanks for the reply. I did not recall the article, but you are certainly correct ! I recently received another photo of Gunn - unknown to me prior. I'll copy these as well. The last one really made the family ecstatic - these should have the same results.

Thanks again.
Mike