Air Service

American Rifleman Editor,

Contributing Editor Bruce N. Canfield's ''Stripped For Air Service'' (American Rifleman, October 2004, p. 66) shows a photo on p. 67 of a de Havilland DH4 bomber of World War I. This versatile and well-armed aircraft saw much action on the Western Front. On October 2nd, 1918, my uncle, Lieutenant James William McNab Ramsey and his observer/gunner, Sergeant J.F. Turner, were shot down and killed. On November 11th, 1918, the slaughter of the ''War To End All Wars'' ended. It took my grandfather until 1922 to locate their graves. He lost two sons killed and one gravely wounded in that bloody conflict. In 1940 he sent over all his many fine guns to the United Kingdom for defense against the National Socialists during World War II. Despite the promise of the U.K. Government to ship all his guns back to him after the war, in 1946 they were confiscated, and no doubt misused or destroyed in favor of slaughter of law-abiding subjects by the criminal element in the U.K.

Gifford Hart
Vermont