The Wright Brothers (Written by W G Uprichard for Sarah)

The Wright Brothers (Written by W G Uprichard for Sarah)

He starts by writing about the Wright brothers first flight then tells a story that happened to him in May 1941. Six pilots flew B17s from Seattle to UK. En route they stopped at Wright Field. The ensuing publicity attracted Orville Wright to come to see the British pilots. They discussed bombing of Germany and civilians. Orville was very religious and didn't like aeroplanes being used as a weapon of war.

Four handwritten sheets

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EUprichardD[Recipient]S[Date]-010001, EUprichardD[Recipient]S[Date]-010002, EUprichardD[Recipient]S[Date]-010003, EUprichardD[Recipient]S[Date]-010004

[inserted] DARRYL
The Wright Brothers (written for Sarah) [/inserted]

Dear Sarah,

This is only for you [sic] own information / why I was in America!

Both Daddy and Granny have asked me if I could write you a little story about the Wright Brothers Wilbur and Orville, who as you know were the first men to make and fly their own aeroplane – the first flight only lasted about 25 seconds! So that wasn’t very long. Unfortunately I have no books on the exploits of the Wright Bros, I had one which gave their full story in detail. This book I bought for Darryl many years ago when he was a small boy and he still has it.

I have however a little story which will surprise you, and this happened in May 1941 when I was one of six aircraft Captains who were engaged in flying Boeing B17C, Flying Fortress Bombers from America to England. We collected the aircraft from the Boeing Company at Seattle on the west coast of America and one of our stops was at “Wright Field” a large American Army Base near Dayton Ohio. We spent a few days there having our aircraft checked, and during that time we had a lot of publicity in the local papers telling all their readers about the “British Aviators” who were

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flying the Great Flying Fortresss [sic] Bombers to England to win the war. This article was seen by Mr Orville Wright who in fact lived in [deleted] Dayton [/deleted] the town of Dayton very convenient to the airfield, so he phoned the Commanding Officer of the base and expressed a desire to see the Captains and talk to them about the war and so we were invited to Afternoon Tea. I was one of four Captains who went along, we were received by his Sister who was a very elderly lady who gave us a nice English afternoon tea of [deleted] nice [/deleted] delicious small sandwiches, scones with butter & jam and cakes – lovely!

Mr Orville shook hands with us and while speaking to my three companions who were [deleted] [indecipherable word] [/deleted] [inserted] Coastal [/inserted] Command pilots who had been flying Sunderland [deleted] & Catalinas [/deleted] flying boats over the Atlantic in search of Submarines. I was the only Bomber Command Captain. Mr Orville was questioning the [deleted] the [/deleted] other pilots about bombing the different targets in Europe and the effects of this bombing on the [inserted] Civil [/inserted] population. [deleted] He was very concerned about the killing of the people [/deleted]

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and the possible killing of the people. Since none of the other Captains had been involved in the bombing raids they handed Mr Orville Wright over to me saying have a chat with Paddy Uprichard he is the Bombing Specialist, so I had a very long chat with him and set his mind at ease that we were briefed [inserted] that [/inserted] not under any circumstances were we to bomb civilians we were given specific industrial targets to bomb and nothing else. He was very relieved at this for both he and his brother Wilbur were very religious and were deeply sorry and regretted that the aeroplane which they had invented was now being used as a weapon of war and destruction.

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1st flight date time

Kitty Hawk

When did He come to England When – [indecipherable word] Farnboro

Wilbur where did he die

Wilbur Wright 1867 [inserted] Died [/inserted] 1912
Typhoid
Died [missing words]