August 11, 1917.
Dear ----[B]:
You have certainly developed into a wonderful correspondent.
Honest-to-goodness, a letter you started my way about a month ago was
quite the most satisfactory and amusing thing I’ve received since I’ve
been over here. Based on practically no material, yet it was alive
with interest, every line. There’s nothing like a finishing school
education. If I thought that you could knit, I would immediately
appoint you as my _marraine_ (godmother), for it’s quite possible for
one person to have more than one soldier and I am but a soldier of
the second class in the French Army. As I understand it, the chief
duty of a _marraine_ is to write letters--you’ve started that in good
style--and to knit wool scarfs, which the devoted soldier hands to a
French peasant woman to unravel and make a pair of socks out of....
Many Yale boys have wandered in upon us of late, Alan Winslow, Wally
Winter, George Mosely, and others. Also Chester Bassett, late of
Washington and Harvard University, who I believe has the good fortune
to be acquainted with you, a very recommendable young man. They tell me
that Cord Meyer is aviating at some camp nearby, but, not having any
machines, they have to spend their time touring the country in a high
powered motor.
Had a long and gossipy letter from Pat the other day, containing
details of many weddings and engagements, even unto young ---- ----.
All my classmates are doing the same stunt. How about being original
and waiting until the war is over and seeing who of the competitors
are left? I quite expect to be, but it’s luck I’m trusting to; there’s
a lot of war left in the nations of Europe. One never can tell; I
may come home on permission in a French uniform with a wing on my
collar.... When the American Air Service is a little further along, it
may be that we will be taken over from the French Army.
I finished up in one division of the school the other day and passed
to another for brevet, the tests for a military aviator. I sort of
have the impression that I wrote you a few weeks ago about it, but
not being sure, run the risk of repetition, which, if any, I hope you
will excuse. This epistle is being written out at the _piste_ (flying
field), waiting for the wind to drop enough to fly, and with me seated
amidst a bunch of Russians, so if there are any superfluous “iskis” or
“ovitches” in this, you will understand why. The Russians are great
fliers; in fact they know so much about it that they never listen to
their monitors and as a result break more machines than all the other
pupils combined. A month ago five of them went to the next school for
acrobacy and in a week every one of them had killed himself. I pulled
a bit of the same Russian stuff in the spiral class of the Blériot.
All the work is solo--never a flight double command so one has to get
instructions on the ground and follow them in the air.
I used my head and senses in performing my first spiral, instead of
shutting my eyes, doing what I had been told and trusting to God. The
result was that I made one more turn than I expected to and that quite
perpendicular, not at all _comme il faut_ in a Blériot. Why something
did not break has been the wonder of the Blériot school. But nothing
did and we got down all right. Another time I planted a cuckoo on
her nose, which is not at all encouraged by the monitors. ’Tis quite
a trick to balance a monoplane on its nose on the ground, but I did
it--quite vertical she lay, with me in the middle struggling with the
safety belt and wondering which way it was going to fall. My final
appearance in the Blériot school was likewise spectacular. The left
wing hit a hole in the air which the right one didn’t. Naturally things
tipped; then they wouldn’t straighten and the only thing to do was to
dive to the low side. I did, but forgot to shut off the motor. A very
steep and fast spiral resulted in which I lost 500 feet in a half-turn
in about two seconds, I think, all with the motor going to beat the
cars. I must have been travelling at many hundreds of miles an hour.
Once again nothing broke, but it was no fault of mine that it didn’t....
Sincerely,
STUART.
V
August 25, 1917.
I started for my altitude test three days ago. The requirement is one
hour above 2,000 metres. I got to 1,950 metres and one cylinder refused
to fire, so I was forced to come down. The next morning I tried again,
got to 900 metres and the magneto ceased to function, thereby stopping
all progress. I glided toward home, but didn’t have quite the height
to make the _piste_, so had to land in a nearby field, just dodging
a potato patch. A flock of curious sheep came around and carefully
examined the machine, getting considerably mixed up in the wires of
the open tail construction and leaving considerable wool thereon. When
the mechanics eventually got the motor going, I started off, didn’t
get quite in the air before the motor went bad and then I ran into
a bean patch, gathering about a bushel of beans with the same tail
wires. Yesterday morning I tried again, climbed to 2,000 in fourteen
minutes and to 3,500 metres (11,500 feet) in forty minutes. I went
up through some light clouds and when I got to 3,500, the top of my
recording barograph, more clouds had formed and I was practically shut
off from the earth, nothing but a beautiful sea of clouds below me, a
very beautiful sight. One other machine was in sight, far below me, but
on top of the clouds. Not wanting to get lost I came down through the
clouds and stayed out my hour just above 2,000 and below the clouds,
where the air was very much churned up, keeping me very busy. Just as
soon as the time was up I came down with a pair of very chilled feet,
making the 2,000 metres in five minutes to the ground. No work since
then on account of bad weather.
This morning I attended my first Catholic funeral, that of the
commandant of the school who was the victim of a mid-air collision, a
very unusual accident. The other machine got down safely though badly
smashed. Everybody in camp attended the funeral in the chapel of the
Artillery Camp next door. I understood none of the service, but the
music by a tenor and a ’cello was excellent. While the cortege was
going down the hill to the cemetery, a Nieuport circled overhead very
low for half an hour or more and dropped a wreath. It was a very
impressive ceremony.
I expect to start on triangle and _petit voyage_ in a few days. When
they are done, I will be a breveted flier in the French Army. Then
comes _perfectionné_ work and acrobacy, so it will be quite a while yet
for me.