Letters from a World War I Aviator

This 200-page hard cover book is a collection of letters from October 23, 1917 to December 8, 1918 written home by a pilot in World War I. With more than 125 photographs taken by the author, the book details this future newspaper editor's often wry observations: from crossing the submarine-infested Atlantic in convoy to combat patrols over German lines in the final months of the war.

Josiah P. Rowe, Jr. was a Second Lieutenant in the famed First Pursuit Group of the Air Service, Signal Corps, American Expeditionary Forces that trained in Italy and France and flew on the Western Front. He was one of 600 pilots to see action in Europe and received the Victory Medal with two battle clasps and two gold overseas chevrons.

Interestingly, his photographs and accounts of training in Foggia Italy comprise one of the few existing descriptions of that camp and are considered by air historians to be of considerable importance.

With original photos of Farman trainers, Nieuports, SPADs, Caproni bombers, and Sopwith tri-planes combined with Rowe's incisive descriptions of flying into the skies over Italy and France, one has a vibrant sense of the excitement that these pilots must have experienced . . . not to mention an awareness of the extreme fragility of their equipment.

A Virginian by birth, Rowe ultimately become the editor of Fredericksburg, Virginia's Free-Lance Star which make his observations well beyond the capabilities of the average dough-boy. And his insights are not only limited to training and the daily routine (which he captures exceptionally well) but also of life in the villages, trips on leave to Rome and Capri, and experiences on the Front.

And so we have photos of airmen and their girls on a hilltop in Capri waving a wine bottle at the photographer, sitting regally in a horse-drawn carriage in Rome and standing in the pose of a conquering hero amid the ruins of the Forum. And camp life, we are to see, featured a range of activities from playing baseball and shooting craps to standing a little in awe of King Victor Emmanuel on his visit to the camp.

This is a book that gives a first-hand feel of what it was like to ship out with the American forces in 1917 and gives a clear, colorful, often amusing and at times sobering view of life as a pilot in World War I.

Josiah P. Rowe, Jr. was born on October 8, l894 in Fredericksburg, Virginia at 801 Hanover Street, the family home since 1820. The home still exists and is at the foot of Marye's Heights (today known as Brompton) and within a short distance of Sunken Road where Confederate Troops wreaked havoc on the Federal troops in the first Battle of Ferericksburg in 1862.

Josiah was the fifth of nine children of Josiah Porter Rowe and Julia Talieferro Rowe. He was a student at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute when the United States entered the war in 1917. He enlisted in the army at Fort Myer, Virginia in 1917 and graduated from the School of Military Aeronautics at Princeton University.

Josiah received his flight training in Foggia, Italy and was commissioned a second lieutenant in May of 1918. He was then shipped to France where he received advanced combat flying training at Isoudon and aerial gunnery training at Cazoux. He joined the 147th Aero Squadron, first Pursuit Group in Rembercourt, France. Eddie Rickenbacker, America's leading ace with 26 victories, was in the same squadron.

A prolific writer, his letters home were published in The Daily Star of which his uncle was editor. Returning from the war he began working for the paper which combined with The Free Lance in 1926 to form The Free-Lance Star. By 1925 he came editor and manager and in 1947 owner and publisher.

In the 1930s and '40s he piloted his own plane, a single engine Curtiss Robin, which he would use to fly to meetings of the Virginia Press Association. During World War Two Josiah helped organize Company 104 of Virginia State Guard and served as its first commander with the rank of captain.

Prior to his death in 1949 at the age of 50 he served as mayor of Fredericksburg as both his father and grandfather had. Throughout his life he remained close to his fellow aviators in the Great War and often attended their gatherings and reunions.