"Allen Peck's WW I Letters Home" tell of his patriotic volunteer service for the brand-new U.S. Army Air Service to fight for his country. Allen's American group was sent to France to be trained by and to fly with a French escadrille. The airplanes were small, flimsy, and slow, with open cockpits and no heat. No oxygen masks. For young pilots these were exciting, challenging, and for some, fatal months.

Allen survived plane crashes, enemy planes shooting bullets through his cockpit, and enemy ground fire. A Croix de Guerre was earned for downing a German. But the trauma was great. After...