[John]

Hello all, I am a former Washington Post reporter and a private pilot. I recently got a publishing contract for a book on the 1919 transcontinental air race, a U.S. Army Air Service-sponsored event that was known officially as the Endurance and Reliability Test (or sometimes the Transcontinental Reliability Test). Virtually all the pilots and observers were active-duty Army, many of them veterans of WW1, which is what drew me to this forum. More than 100 aviators participated, including observers and mechanics. Nine of them died; 54 planes crashed. Later this year I will fly the route in my two-seat light sport aircraft, hopefully with better results. In any case, I am trying to find out as much as I can about the contestants. Some–such as Hap Hartney and Carl Spaatz–are quite well known but others have been largely lost to history. I am combing through the obvious sources–newspaper databases, Army records at the National Archives, the U.S. Air Force Historical Research Agency at Maxwell AFB, etc–but what I’d really like to find are personal records such as letters, diaries, etc, that might be in the care of descendants, or in repositories that I haven’t considered. There was one British contestant, Brig. Gen. L.E.O. Charlton, the British defense attache in Washington, and one Frenchman, Capt. de Lavergne (the French defense attache). I have posted an attachment (below) listing all the participants, from the Army’s official report. Thanks in advance for any help. John

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