In the first place, we are all sad because our captain leaves us today.
He is a wonderful man and everyone loves him immediately and always. I
have only been here three weeks and yet I wanted to weep. As for him,
the tears ran down his cheeks when he said _au revoir, mes amis_
(good-bye, my friends). Another takes his place.
Last night gave a pleasant diversion. It started with a visit to our
squadron of a group of aeroplane spotters for the United States balloon
service. At their head was the first lieutenant by the name of Grant,
from Ohio. He fell into conversation and it developed that he was a very
good friend of “Stuff” Spencer’s at Yale. We proved interested in each
other’s work and he invited me to come over to have dinner at his camp,
located some twelve kilometers from here. I said I’d be glad to some
time. He left soon after.
I went over and shot a few rounds at the target, this time without
mishap. At about five the craving to walk was upon me, so I took the
road leading to the balloon camp, hardly expecting to reach it. With the
help of passing trucks I came to the camp, and passed through a town
swarming with Americans. Along the roads were blocks of American trucks
and ambulances, waiting for darkness to hide their movements. Many
mistook me for a French officer and saluted. Those who answered my
questions of inquiry stood at attention and replied with “sir.” I wanted
to shake hands with them all for they acted as if they had been at it
for years. When I came to the officers’ quarters I was introduced to
them as into a college fraternity. I was proud rather than angered at
having to salute them. They were gentlemen. Now I know why college men
will make the best officers. They had a victrola, good food, good
_esprit de corps_. I stayed all night and came back this morning. Well,
I want to be a member of the American organization. With all its
youngness and inexperience, it is good. God give it speed. I shall go
over there again.
This showed me another thing: it is quite simple for me to go to points
of interest within a radius of fifteen miles from here and return by
morning, this giving me an opportunity for seeing other branches of the
service. I am reading up on ballooning, aerial photography, and map
work, artillery _réglage_ and reconnaissance, and after that I shall
study U. S. Army regulations and also wireless. I may have to change at
any time to the United States forces, in which case I wish to be in a
position to compete with the men I shall find in it.
It seems to me in my last letter I told you of an accident while
shooting and said they were common. Well, since then I have had a real
accident, so miraculous in its outcome than I am superstitious as a
result. You have read of bandits whose bodies could not be marred by
bullets. The gods must be saving me for something. Father has always
feared a speed greater than twenty-five miles an hour in an automobile.
One has the impression that to hit anything at that speed is very apt to
kill one. Also, you know the marked increase in speed between
twenty-five and thirty-five miles per hour. Say you have gone fifty
miles an hour. Now imagine yourself going twice that fast along a
precipice road. Suddenly the machine comes to the edge of the cliff, and
plunges out into space, at a hundred miles an hour, and down three
hundred feet into a pine forest below. Picture what you would find if
you went down and looked into the remains of such an accident. Well, the
equivalent happened to me. As soon as I hit I cut the spark and turned
the cock which relieves pressure from the gas tank, to prevent fire;
released the belt which held me in my seat; reached up and pulled myself
out of the wreckage by the limb of a tree which had fallen over my head;
and made my way through the underbrush without turning to look at the
machine. As I stepped out upon a road half a mile away, a Red Cross Ford
came along and took me to a near-by village. There I ate a heavy meal
while talking to the madame’s daughter, and then telephoned for them to
come and get me. When they arrived we were all singing and playing at
the piano.
It was my first flight over the lines. I had been flying alone up and
down our sector for half an hour. I had seen seven Boche planes a few
miles off, but they had immediately disappeared in the clouds. From the
first my motor had been running cold. I had attained the height of 4,700
meters. When I started to come down I found it impossible to descend and
yet keep the motor warm enough to run. Clouds had gathered below. I
tried to wing slip, but still the temperature of the motor dropped. So I
wing slipped through the clouds. I had not planned on it, but they were
2,000 meters thick. I came down from 2,800 to 800 meters in some fifteen
seconds, a rate of considerably over 250 miles an hour. If the fog had
not been so thick the outcome would have been different for the engine
would not have gotten so cold, but by the time I could think of
adjusting my motor I was at 400. When I found the motor would not work
it was fifty, and over a pine wood. I tried to turn back to a field, but
started to wing slip, which is death, so I straightened out, let it slow
down a bit, and then pointed it down into the trees at an angle of
thirty degrees. It is less dangerous to hit an object that way than in
line of flight. Things happened just as I expected. The plane mowed down
seven or eight six-inch pines. The motor plowed ahead of me and the
trees took the shock as they broke. Just before the machine hit the
ground it pivoted on a tree and cut an arc, which slowed it up more. All
this happened with the suddenness and sound of a stick broken over the
knee, yet I was not jolted. The pine trees fell around me without
touching me. The wings and framework and running gear and propeller were
shattered, but I was not scratched. I was pinned in the very heart of
all this débris, without a bump, a bruise, or a broken bone. Goggles on
my forehead, a mirror within an inch of my face, and the glass
windshield in my lap were unbroken, though the steel braces all about
them were bent and broken. The gasoline tank under me did not have a
leak. The rest of the machine was good for souvenirs. It was too big a
mystery for me to understand.
Yours in a horse-shoe halo.
Son.
_March 21, 1918._