‘A Short Life in the Sky’: the story of a WWI pilot
Letter of condolence, 23 December 1916, page 1
 (NRS reference: GD486/160/1)

Transcript:

R. N. Air Station
Westgate-on-Sea 
Kent
Dec[ember] 23rd 1916

Dear Mr Hume

We were all deeply affected
by your son’s death & felt for you very much 
when you came to visit Westgate, it must 
have been a very trying day for you. 
He was a fine boy in every sense of the word. 
He was a good officer & a nicer companion 
in a mess one couldn’t have. I was astonished 
when he told me his age. He gave one the 
impression of being much older. He was 
I think without exception the best boy in the 
mess both from the point of capability as an officer 
& as a man, everyone here would tell you the same. 
As to his health, he never complained to me of 
feeling ill & he played football & was in every 
skylark in the mess. He was at the Queens at a 
dance the night before his end, & he was full 
of life then & I saw him & was talking to him…