“Thousands fell that day, but the Kaiser did not make his triumphal entry. Looking back on this latter experience of mine I think myself most fortunate in having been able to return to the French lines without a scratch. I got home safely because the German aviators lacked either courage or skill or both. They had me with my engine dead, four against one, and twenty kilometres within their lines.”
Portrait as exhibited at Allied Fairs
Alluding to the occasion of the telling of this story, William Roscoe Thayer, who presided at the dinner, said when the tidings of Norman’s death came from France: “I shall never forget that Christmas night at the Tavern Club when Norman sat next to me and told me many details of his service and then arose and gave that wonderfully simple, impressive story. To have had such a service and to die fighting for the cause which means the defense of civilization—what nobler career could he have had? I can think of no one who more thoroughly enjoyed the life of continuous peril which he led. The honors which it brought him showed that France recognized as heroism that which he took as a matter of course.”
III
LETTERS
The following letters of Norman Prince, although chiefly of an intimate and personal character, are here published as a part of the record of his experiences in the service of France and as further testimony to his tenderly affectionate nature and his constant thoughtfulness and solicitude for those he left at home.
With his Superior Officer Lieutenant de Laage de Mœux