Dinsmore Ely: One Who Served

Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Company. Very Good with no dust jacket. 1919. First Edition Thus. First Printing. Hard Cover. Publisher's full brown cloth, gilt lettering on spine and cover. A heartfelt memorial, this is a collection of letters and poems of Second Lieutenant Dinsmore Ely, written to his family in Winnetka, Illinois, during World War I. At the outbreak of the war, he volunteered in the American Ambulance Field Service so that he might secure immediate passage to France and go at once into active service. Arriving there on the fourth of July, 1917, on the sixth he volunteered and was accepted the same day, in the Lafayette Flying Corps. Shot down while flying in his Spad over France (near Villacoublay) on April 21, 1918, he died in a Paris hospital and was buried in Des Gonard's Cemetery, at Versailles. He was 24 years old, and had already been decorated for valor. Includes a "Prelude" by Dr. James O. Ely, his father. The Lafayette Flying Corps is a name given to the American volunteer pilots who flew for the French during World War I. Extremely scarce.. Former owner's signature (Robert Walpole, Jr.) and gift inscription (Christmas, 1919 from Emma Williams, a teacher of Dinsmore Ely) on ffep; gilt on spine faded, covers lightly rubbed; otherwise unmarked, tight, square and clean. VERY GOOD.. Photographic Frontispiece. 12mo 7" - 7½" tall. x, 215 pp .