To the Last Man - Jeff Shaara [395]
EDWIN “TED” PARSONS
After the termination of the Lafayette Escadrille, Parsons chooses to remain in the French Air Service, and is assigned to Escadrille SPA.3, and by the fall of that year, he commands the squadron. After the armistice, he returns to the States, but still carries his commission in the Aeronautique Militaire, and thus, finds himself serving as a liaison in the French High Commission in Washington. After his discharge in 1920, he applies to serve in the newly formed Federal Bureau of Investigation, and graduates in the FBI’s first training class for special agents. He is assigned to Los Angeles, but in 1923, he tires of the structure of government service, and resigns. He becomes a private investigator, but meets Hollywood film director William Wellman, who offers Parsons a position at Paramount Studios. Wellman discovers Parsons to be a talented writer, and in 1926, Parsons produces screenplays, as well as serving as the technical adviser to a number of aviation films. He eventually works for Howard Hughes, where he contributes to the production of Hell’s Angels, considered by many at the time to be Hughes’ best film.
Parsons continues to pursue a talent for writing, and in 1937, he publishes his memoirs, I Flew with the Lafayette Escadrille, considered to be the most complete and finest account of the pilots’ experiences in the escadrille, as well as the most entertaining.
He joins the United States Naval Reserve, but in 1939, the political neutrality of the United States infuriates him, and he attempts to re-create the formation of the escadrille by assembling a group of pilots who will again serve the French effort against the threats from Germany. But the American government is considerably less tolerant of such efforts than it had been in 1916, and Parsons abandons the attempt. In 1940, as America begins the process of rebuilding its military for what many see as the inevitability of another war with Germany, Parsons goes to Pensacola, Florida, where he serves as a flight instructor.
With the outbreak of war, now–Lieutenant Commander Parsons serves in the Pacific theater, and commands an amphibious assault unit, where he receives considerable praise for his handling of operations on both the Philippines and Okinawa. He retires from the navy in 1954, having achieved the rank of rear admiral. He settles near Sarasota, Florida, and, in 1957, marries for the first time.
Along with Paul Rockwell (Kiffin’s older brother), Parsons’ efforts are critical to the preservation of much of the history and records of the escadrille. He remains active in reunions with the few remaining pilots, and dies in 1968, at age seventy-five. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
GEORGES THENAULT
After the Lafayette Escadrille is absorbed by the American Air Service, the squadron’s sole commanding officer remains in service to the Aeronautique Militaire. In February 1918, he is assigned to the training facility at Pau, France, where he serves until the armistice. After the war, he travels to the United States for the first time, where he becomes the French military attaché to his nation’s embassy in Washington. As efforts to fund the monument to the escadrille take shape, Thenault finds himself involved with the influential Frederick Prince, in the same kinds of controversies that plague Bill Thaw. Thenault writes his memoirs, which he naÏvely submits to a patronizing Prince, who translates Thenault’s work by incorporating considerable added material that makes it appear that Thenault himself credits Nimmie Prince for the escadrille’s successes. When the book is published in the States, Thenault finds himself the target of considerable wrath from surviving escadrille members. Furious, he works through the difficult process of altering and revising his work.
Thenault remains