I
AVORD,
July 4, 1917.
Dear H----:
... My work here is going well, although slowly. Those in my class
ought to get out by October if nothing goes wrong. There are some
150 Americans learning to fly now in France, besides the ones the
Government may have sent over--more than a hundred at this one school,
and the oddest combination I’ve ever been thrown with: chauffeurs,
second-story men, ex-college athletes, racing drivers, salesmen, young
bums of leisure, a colored prize fighter, ex-Foreign Légionnaires, ball
players, millionaires and tramps. Not too good a crowd according to
most standards, but the worst bums may make the best aviators. There’s
plenty of need for all of them.
There are lots of Frenchmen here also and a big crowd of Russians,
mostly happy youngsters having a very good time. They’re always in a
hurry to get up in the air and are continually breaking machines and
their necks. The Americans have an endless streak of luck in being able
to fall out of the air and collect themselves uninjured from amidst a
pile of kindling wood which was the machine. As yet I haven’t done any
piloting in the air, so can’t talk very wisely about the glories and
thrills of slipping through the ephemeral clouds. All I have learned is
that almost any kind of a dub can be a pilot, but that there aren’t a
lot of very good ones. The idea is to get enough practice to become a
good one before arguing with the elusive Boche at a high altitude.
It looks over here as though there would be about two years more of
war, judging from what most people say. It is to be hoped that after
twelve to eighteen months we will be able to take France’s place at
the front, for she deserves to be relieved and will have to be. Even
now, France is almost spent; it will be England and the United States
who will finish the war. This war is a terrible thing, but for America
it is an opportunity as well. I am glad that we have at last come into
it and that it will be no half-way fight that we must put up. The
Canadians have been about the best regiments in the war. Why shouldn’t
America be as good?...