Baldeagle's Big Adventure

baldeagle · 9 June 2003, 02:50 PM

Just returned from a trip to France and Belgium, a whirlwind journey as follows: 2 days in Paris, a day in Verdun, a day in Bastogne, a day in the Somme area, June 5 and 6 in Normandy, and two days at the grand Fete Aerienne at La Ferte Alais. Highlights included the Lafayette Memorial in the Forest of St. Cloud, the Crillon Hotel in Paris, Gengoult Aerodrome where the 94th Aero Sqn and others were based in 1918, Murveaux where

Frank Luke was shot down, the sites of Von R's last take-off and last landing, the foxholes at Foy, Normandy on June 6, and seeing a total of about 6 rotary engined aircraft flying (not all at once) at LFA, plus a new repro SE-5a with a Hisso flying alongside an original SPAD XIII, followed by a display by a Fokker Triplane, chased by two Stampe/SE-5s, while a Breguet 14 droned around overhead...
I'll describe more when get over this jet lag, and if I can only figure out how to get pictures from my new digital camera onto a posting then you can see some of this.

AK

Rick · 9 June 2003, 04:00 PM

Sounds like you had a great time

I envy you. R.

baldeagle · 12 June 2003, 08:35 AM

All right, I've got this far-- click on the below to see the sarcophogus of

Raoul Lufbery, in the crypt below the Lafayette Escadrille Memorial in the Forest of St. Cloud outside of Paris. Note the stone placard beneath the sarcophogus (how do you spell that??) from the mysterious "P.T", does anybody know who that might be?

http://home.earthlink.net/~baldeagle27/sit...es/lufbery1.jpg

baldeagle · 12 June 2003, 09:27 AM

This photo was taken from the hill behind the church in Murveaux, looking approximately west. In the center of the photo is a narrow light brown colored field with a border of dark green bushes on this side of it. Luke went down somewhere just on the other side of this field, and went downhill to the stream out of sight to the left of the field. AA positions were up the hill to the right. About 5 or 6 km in the distance is Milly, where he had flamed his third observation balloon that day before turning to fly up the valley towards Murveaux, and a little further is the Meuse River.

http://home.earthlink.net/~baldeagle27/sit.../frankluke1.jpg

12 June 2003, 10:58 AM

Nice pics...do you have more to share? I especially like the shot of Lufbery's tomb. In my job, I study the history of death and related topics, so I'm always interested in documenting the burial of people...famous or not. And there's a special topic of study in how we bury, send-off, and memorialize our war dead.

Looks like you had fun. Maybe I'll get to Europe some day. ???