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?...
Stuart.
II
Escole d’Aviation Militaire
Avord, Cher, France.
Friday, July 13, 1917.
You see it’s Friday, the thirteenth, my lucky day, and I’m happy because the work is going well. First, I’ll tell you about a smash I had a week or so ago.