Transcript of letter from Leon Mann to Laurence L. Doggett (March 22, 1916)
Description:
Transcript of a letter from Leon Mann to Laurence L. Doggett dated March 22, 1916. It is not known when the transcript was made. In the letter Leon talks about alumni at Springfield College, such as Louis Marchand and Charles Bonnamaux, and a few people that Doggett has met, including Gaston Partidge (an aviation hero of the Great War). Mostly he talks about what they are doing in the war and how they are doing. The original of this letter can be found under file number: rg104-01-a-01-02a-002. Leon Charles Mann came to Springfield College in 1906, which as then known as the International YMCA Training School. Mann graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Humanics in 1909. He served as General Secretary of the Y.M.C.A. of France from 1909 to 1914. In 1914, with the outbreak of World War 1, he enlisted in the French Army and served for three years. He also worked as the Assistant Physical Director of the Paris Y.M.C.A., and as Secretary and Assistant Pastor of the French-Canadian Church in Springfield, Massachusetts. Mann also worked as a pastor in Clairac, Lot-et-Garconne, France. Leon Mann died on January 16, 1952. Gaston Partridge is an aviation hero of the Great War. According to reports, Gaston was a reserved and very courteous man who never boasted of a "beautiful war," as it was then called. He took part in the first major French air raid on Germany, in response to the use of asphyxiant gases by the Germans in Ypres. On May 27, 1915, with his squadron, he took part in the first long-range bombing of the history of aviation (400 km/248.5 mi, 6 hours flight). The planes bombed the chlorine gas plants in Ludwigshafen near Mannheim and Oppau.
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