I've taken some heat for being snide about Decre' per above - whom I regard as ridiculous -
There IS no discernable position there, there IS no apparent sense of direction - only a desire to flash everybody with White Bird's fame, so far as I can tell -
So let me clarify for the record:
I take what Ric shared about Decre's contact as reliable - Ric would have no reason to fabricate that (and it is too rich by itself, anyway).
As a communique', I find it utterly wanting for any true working content and absent of any decent working diplomacy.
That he doesn't speak English fluently, apparently, does not bother me in the least; that he wouldn't bother using someone with better translation / syntax skills in contacting a colleague with more aplomb than the pig English and his foppish ideas about having celebrity novel authors attend (as much as I admire Cussler's writings AND wreck-finding accomplishments AND car collection, that is his chief occupation) at his whim is utter nonsense to me -
So, without apology to any who might be offended, it brings out the most acid lampoonery I can concoct. I'm not sure what else to say about Decre's 'effort' which is hardly a decent reflection of the sincerity of the French people's pride in Nungesser and Coli and White Bird, so far as I can tell. It certainly does not reflect the pride I feel for those two French aviators who risked and lost all to try for the first Paris-NYC crossing so many years ago.
If this is all unfair and ugly of me, then I will gracefully accept removal of this and the preceding post, should TIGHAR judge it so. Having myself at times grown sick of my own posts over time, I may do so as well later, if whim strikes...
As to my German-English wisecrack, it had nothing to do with language, but an old German-English fable about products that were not worth the effort because of the tedium involved in using them - which is precisely the sum of what I find in attempting to follow Decre's 'effort'.
So there I go again, mean-mean-mean...