A letter written by WWI pilot Duncan Mactavish to his commander E. L. Howard-Williams has united the two families for three generations. Howard-Williams’s grandson brought the letter to Mactavish’s family in Ottawa, showing them the last words the pilot wrote before going to a German POW camp.
In May 1917, a German fighter plane made an unusual delivery to a British airfield in France.
A brick fell from the sky. It carried two folded notes, one in German, the other in English.
“Herewith a German patrol sends you news of Lieut. Mactavish and Captain Allen,” the first note read.
Capt. Arthur Spencer Allen was dead, but Duncan Mactavish survived after the Germans shot down the BE2e reconnaissance plane he piloted during the Battle of Arras.