Pat started flying, in Chicago, in 1912. “I was then eighteen years
old,” he says, “but I had had a hankering for the air ever since I can
remember....
“In the early part of 1916, when trouble was brewing in Mexico, I
joined the American Flying Corps. I was sent to San Diego, where the
Army flying school is located, and spent about eight months there, but
as I was anxious to get into active service and there didn’t seem much
chance of America ever getting into the war, I resigned and, crossing
over to Canada, joined the Royal Flying Corps at Victoria, B. C.
“I was sent to Camp Borden, Toronto, first to receive instruction and
later to instruct. While a cadet I made the first loop ever made
by a cadet in Canada, and after I had performed the stunt I half
expected to be kicked out of the service for it. Apparently, however,
they considered the source and let it go at that. Later on I had the
satisfaction of introducing the loop as part of the regular course of
instruction for cadets in the R. F. C., and I want to say right here
that Camp Borden has turned out some of the best fliers that have ever
gone to France.
“In May, 1917, I and seventeen other Canadian fliers left for England
on the _Megantic_, where we were to qualify for service in France....
“Within a few weeks after our arrival in England all of us had won our
‘wings’—the insignia worn on the left breast by every pilot on the
western front.
“We were all sent to a place in France known as the Pool Pilots’ Mess.
Here men gather from all the training squadrons in Canada and England
and await assignments to the particular squadron of which they are to
become members.”
He was soon “called” to a squadron stationed about eighteen miles back
of the Ypres Line. There were eighteen pilots. The routine was two
flights a day, each of two hours’ duration. He presently found that
his squadron “was some hot squadron,” the fliers being assigned to
special-duty work, “such as shooting up trenches at a height of fifty
feet from the ground.”