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Welcome to 'An Airmans Lost Letters' 1915-1917


These long forgotten letters penned by a young R.F.C. pilot, 2nd Lt. Oliver Charles Pearson to his Mother during the Great War, were discovered and liberated from a skip filled with the remnants of a roof clearance at a property in Southampton, UK during the mid 1990s. Within the past year they were rediscovered (again) having sat in a box in a loft for the last 10-15 years and were kindly passed to this sites authors, both of whom share an interest in social and military history from this period.

Any links the letters had with the Pearson family have been long forgotten. We, the creators of this website, believe these documents are important social records of great interest to many, truly deserving preservation and a wider audience.

When the letters came into our possession, via the nephew of the original finder, we deliberated over what we should do with them - perhaps donate them to a war museum? Oliver Pearsons old school? or return them to any living descendants, should we discover any. All of these options are still open but before a final decision is made we present them here for all to read.

All the letters have now been painstakingly hand typed and catalogued by Mike, during tea breaks and quiet evenings at home. This took several months, but once completed, we decided to begin this very blog you are reading now, and post each letter chronologically as a permanent online record for anyone interested in the history of the Great War.

We hope people more knowledgeable than us will add their input and assist in providing further details about this young mans life and the family history associated with it. All we have are these letters and some small details gleaned from them on-line, such as the whereabouts of his family home, his school and references to his disappearance in 1917 at the hands of a renowned German fighter pilot.

We plan to post one or two letters per week and intersperse them with further information and related history that we have discovered. The first letter will be posted on Nov 11th 2008. Bookmark us to keep up to date with new posts and please share this site with anyone you believe will be interested.

(Please note: all spelling and grammar is presented exactly as found in the letters.)

If you are a new visitor to this site we suggest that you scroll to the bottom of this page to read the letters sequentially. 

Thank you for reading.

Dan Little & Mike Johnson - Editors.

Comments

Alf said…
Jack,

What a fantastic idea. I shall follow the 'blog' with great interest.

Well done to both of you.

Pip pip,

Alf
Dan Little said…
Thanks for your support and kind comments Alf.

Cheers, Dan
Mike Johnson said…
Cheers Alf! Hope the Cenotaph went well today BTW, looked good on the BBC coverage!
Catch up soon, Jack.
Anonymous said…
We discovered two photographs of Oliver and his RSC capbadge in the boxroom of our house when we moved in during 1984.
Olivers brother lived in our house for many years.
Every Remembrance Sunday we tuck a fresh poppy behind his photo frame.
Our son is also an Oliver. So he is not forgotten.
Many thanks
Steve Smith

Mike Johnson said…
Thank you so much for that Steve. It is incredible how many little bits of this jigsaw are out there, and that they have not been lost or forgotten over the years.
We would dearly love to see the photo you have, as we have still not been able to put a face to these letters. I would love to know what Oliver looked like. Drop me a line at work and hopefully we can sort something out.

mike@rockitdesign.co.uk

Mike.

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Letter 21 - I was a bit surprised you bet but I have had my first trip over hunland.

A note from the Editors: We are missing a letter which is a pain, as things have moved on a pace since Olivers last letter! He has now been posted back to 70 Squadron and straight back in the saddle, with a description of his first eventful flight over enemy lines - 'Hunland'. It has been just 3 weeks since his crash. Franked 8 SP 17 O.A.S. Mrs Chas. E. Pearson, Hillcrest, Lowdham, Notts. Letter No. 15 II 70 Squadron RFC BEF France 6.9.17 Letter no 15 Dear Mother & Dad. I have just received two letters from you dated 2 Sept so that they have only taken 4 days to come. I am again with my Squadron. I played my last card and won. I slung my weight about till I must have made everyone fed up with me & so they got a hustle on. I came back yesterday morning & flew in the afternoon for about an hour & a half. This morning at 5.30 I was wakened up to say I was for patrol at six. I was a bit surprised you bet but I have had my first trip over hunland. It was very cloudy

We can finally see the face behind the letters

Since we started this blog in 2008, we feel we have got to know Oliver quite well, from the letters home we have shared here. One thing that frustrated us though was not having an image of Oliver. We really wanted to put a face to the young man. The Great War saw an explosion in photography, with every proud soldier and sailor having a studio photograph taken of themselves in uniform, and made into multiple postcards to send on to family and friends. And less common than the studio portraiture, not helped by strict censorship in force, were pocket cameras and amateur photographers. Oliver himself mentions his camera several times ... "Talking of photographs I am sorry you will have no studio ones of me because while I was at home and at Birmingham I had no clothes fit to wear and while at the C.F.S. had no opportunity but I do promise that I will have some done here when and as soon as it is possible for me. It should not be difficult. Keep all the letters from me that are int