I was recently given copies of 14 letters from a young flying cadet named “Clarence” taking “Pursuit Training” at Carlstrom Field, just south of Arcadia, Fla. in the fall of 1918. He sent the letters to his mother. DeSoto County historian Howard Melton let me read them. The letters are interesting and talk a little…
From World War I
My father, Thomas J. Moore, was a pioneer aerial photographer who began his mapping career in World War I
When I wrote this column in 2004 for the Charlotte Sun daily newspaper I was trying to make the point: Don’t do what I did and fail to interview your father about his military service and what he did in life after his time in the military. Unfortunately, I didn’t wake up to the fact…
Arcadia flying-bomb basis for WW II German ‘Buzz Bomb’
The devastating German V-1 rockets that rained terror and death down on the inhabitants of London in World War II, during the ‘Blitz,’ had their birth in Arcadia, Fla.
Soldier’s WW I diary a treasured memory of the part he played in ‘The Great War’
A Farewell to Arms, tells the story of Lt. Frederic Henry, the main character in Hemingway’s novel about a World War I ambulance driver who deserts his unit because he can no longer face the maiming and killing on the front lines he had to endure. Anne Hilliard of Arcadia, Fla. whose father, Wesley Norman…

