With his Favorite Plane
The dead hero was given all the honors of a military funeral, which was held in the Luxeuil aviation field, where the body rested on a caisson draped with the American and French flags. The services, which were conducted by a French regimental chaplain, were attended by a large representation of the Allied military divisions, including French and English officers of high rank, as well as a full representation of the American Escadrille and pilots from the neighboring aviation camps. During the funeral, instead of the customary firing of cannon as a salutation to the dead, a squadron of aeroplanes circled in midair over the field in honor of the departed aviator, showering down myriads of flowers. The body was borne to a neighboring chapel, there to rest until the end of the war, in accordance with the military regulations governing the temporary disposition of the remains of those dying at the battle-fronts.
A memorial service, held on the following Sunday in the American Church in Paris, was described by those present as one of the most impressive ever witnessed in that sanctuary. The American colony came in full numbers to testify their admiration and appreciation of their fellow-countryman’s valor and sacrifice. The President of the French Republic, the heads of the executive and legislative branches of the Government, the Army and Navy and the Diplomatic Corps were represented by their most distinguished members, and the emblems of mourning contributed to a scene that was as beautiful as it was significant and memorable.
This is but the bare outline of the biography of a rare spirit whose loyalty to his ideals and the high chivalry of whose devotion to the cause of Liberty, Civilization, and Humanity have made his name one to be remembered and his memory cherished with those of his patriotic comrades and fellow-countrymen who fell for the same cause “in the sunny morn and flower of their young years.”
It deserves to be noted here that in all of Norman’s spoken or written messages, telling of his experiences in France, there is nowhere to be found a note of doubt or discouragement or a word denoting any lack of confidence in the ultimate triumph of the cause for which he was fighting. The Allies might meet repeated reverses, and tremendous sacrifices of blood and treasure might have to be made, before a decisive victory could be achieved, but he never doubted the final outcome of the war. His faith in this respect was as firm and unflinching as were his courage and natural optimism in all human affairs. His sense of consecration was unceasingly vibrant. He deeply regretted that his own country was not yet actively enlisted on the side of the Allies and that he was not permitted from the beginning to represent his Government as well as his country in the fighting lines, but this disappointment did not diminish his enthusiasm as an American volunteer soldier giving his services for a cause that he believed to be that of his country and of the world. In one of his letters he wrote enthusiastically:
“Everything goes well. Before the end of this war we shall have aeroplanes with at least 800 or 1000 horsepower flying from Soissons to Petrograd, setting fire to the four corners of Berlin.”
The death of his comrade Victor Chapman touched him deeply. “Poor Victor!” he wrote. “He was killed while fighting a German aeroplane that was attacking Lufberry and me. A sad but glorious death, facing the enemy in a great cause and to save a friend!”
Norman Prince’s heroic sacrifice is finely described in the ode written in memory of the American volunteers fighting for France, by Alan Seeger, the young American soldier-poet, who finally gave his own life for the cause of the Allies on the battlefield of Belloy-en-Santerre;
“Yet sought they neither recompense nor praise,
Nor to be mentioned in another breath