"Tonight a regiment marched by, each battalion playing its band and the men singing as they went up to the trenches. It was a most impressive thing to hear & filled one's mind with the wonders of war." (Last diary entry, April 10, 1918)

Gustav Hermann Kissel

Gustav Hermann Kissel War: World War, 1914-1918 Branch: Army Unit: 43rd Squadron, Royal Air Force Service Location: France; England; Scotland Rank: Lieutenant Place of Birth: DC

Gustav Kissel graduated from Harvard in 1917, just as America was entering the Great War. He was accepted into the Air Service and was sent for training that summer to England due to a shortage of planes, fields, and equipment in the U.S. His diary, begun in March 1917, details his eagerness and anticipation, tempered by the sobering loss of a Harvard classmate killed in January 1918 during a training exercise. Highly regarded by his colleagues for his flying skills, Kissel took off on his first mission on April 12. His squadron encountered a large number of enemy planes, and Kissel's plane was shot down. He is the only American buried in France's Pont du Hem Cemetery for veterans of World War I.