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Armistice Day and a WWI airman

Douglas Pratt
@DouglasPratt
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I'm finishing up the narration of Balloon Ace today and will submit it to Redwood Audiobooks for review tomorrow. The book is remarkable and the timing interesting, considering that today is Armistice Day.

It's in two distinct parts. The first covers the career of Louis Bennett Jr, at Yale and in the military. He tried to set up an aviation Reserve Corps in West Virginia, but the Army wanted no part of it, as Wilson didn't want Theodore Roosevelt whipping up another corps of Rough Riders. So he went to Britain and enlisted in the RAF. There he made an impressive record before he was shot down by anti-aircraft fire while attacking an observation balloon.

The second part is the story of his mother, Sallie Maxwell Bennett, who was one of those classic "steel magnolia" Southern ladies—absolutely unstoppable. She put a huge effort into getting Louis' remains home for burial, despite French laws, British intransigence, and American red tape. In the process she located and documented dozens of American airmen's graves for their grieving mothers. She then devoted her amazing energy to creating memorials, both to her son and to all the sons of the mothers who shared her grief. Starting with a stained glass window at Westminster Abbey and ending with a statue in West Virginia, she overcame obstacles and bureaucratic barriers that would have stopped anyone else in their tracks. For example, when told that her Westminster Abbey window could not be made to memorialize her son explicitly, she had the artist put Louis' face on one of the hovering angels.

I hope this title will be up on Audible by the end of the month; I'll be sure to announce it when it's available, and, of course, Ricochet members are welcome to free review copies of the audiobook. This one is one of my favorites, and that's saying something, since I just signed the contract for my 99th narration.

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Discussion (3)

  • jzdro@jzdro

    Thank you, Doug, for the review of a book that would never have come to my attention otherwise.

    The statue pictured on the front dustjacket is remarkable. Can you tell us anything about it? One wing up, one wing down, but the face ever looking upward - so poignant.

  • Douglas Pratt@DouglasPratt
    Replyingtojzdro

    jzdro (View Comment):

    Thank you, Doug, for the review of a book that would never have come to my attention otherwise.

    The statue pictured on the front dustjacket is remarkable. Can you tell us anything about it? One wing up, one wing down, but the face ever looking upward – so poignant.

    Yes indeed. Its story is most of Chapter 10. Sallie Maxwell Bennett commissioned it, and the artist also created the statue of Jefferson Davis in the US Capitol. Her intent was to memorialize her son and all the other Great War aviators who died, hence the broken wing. She considered it "a gift from one mother to all mothers" who had lost sons in the war.

    I handed in the book yesterday. If you like, I can set up a sneak preview of Chapter 10 for you to listen to.