Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: II. Lord God of Hosts, whose mighty hand Dominion holds on sea and land, In Peace and War Thy will we see Shaping the larger liberty. Nations may rise and nations fall, Thy changeless purpose rules them all For those to whom the call shall come We pray Thy tender welcome home. The toil, the bitterness, all past, We trust them to Thy love at last. O, hear a people's prayers for all Who, nobly striving, nobly fall! —John Oxenham. Long before the declaration by Congress that a state of war with Germany existed, Archie became impressed with the enormous importance and almost unlimited possibilities of aviation. The following entry appears in his diary under date of 3 Sept., 1916: "I spent the evening reading the Flying Magazine and have determined to take a course in one of the aviation schools next summer." Another entry reads: "10 Dec., 1916. Talked to father about aviation." Well do I remember that conversation. He had unquestionably reached the conclusion that the air service was the branch in which he could best serve his country On 8 March, 1917, he applied for a commission as first lieutenant in the Aviation Section, Signal Officers' Reserve Corps, the application being accompanied by the following letter of recommendation: March 12, 1917. My Dear Sir : I have the greatest pleasure in recommending for your consideration Mr. Arthur Richmond Taber, a member of Princeton University. Mr. Taber is a young man of ability and of the strictest integrity. He has had six months' experience in the ambulance work of the American Ambulance Hospital in France, where he gave splendid service. He is a young person of the greatest courage and of very real ability. I recommend him to you, with great confidence in his fitness for the splendid work of your corps. I am, V...