Loyola University Maryland - Evergreen / Green and Gray Yearbook (Baltimore, MD)

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down. Then you must tly to an altitude of 6,000 feet, stay there for two hours and spiral down with the motor completely stopped. That was good si)ort. After that a journey to the English school at Vendome is made and you have “finis as the French say, and you get a machine and lly where yon want to. (To His Brother) : France, Sept. 12, 1917. Am now tlying sea-i)lanes. They are good sjiort, but I must say I like the land machines better and ho])e to he sent back to them later. Expect to linish here in a couple of weeks and he sent to San Raphael for rough water Hying and machine guns. (To His Brother) : St. Raphael, France, Oct. 28, 1917. It does seem remarkable that I have tlown eight different kinds of machines and not broken my neck. 1 guess I told you that I was to be made an instructor. Well, I have started on my studies. I know why there is wind, the different kinds of clouds, what causes storms, how to make and load a bomb, operate and repair a machine gun, hut by no means do I know the different theories of flight. I have hopes though, and if I learn enough. I’ll iirobably never practice law again, but stick to aerojilanes not Hying, that is only a war measure and hard on the nerves. Do you know that out of fifty there are only twenty-seven left in the game — had to quit for jihysical reasons? I learn that Fr. Duffy (his former teacher at Foyola, now Chaplain in the Navy) has returned to Foyola. If you see him give him my resiiects and ' say that I still have the holy “badge” (of the Sacred Heart) which he sent me while I was at Pensacola. I guess he feels rather elated over the work priests are doing in France. It is said they are most fearless and have done wonders for the wounded, and one sees very few of them in the towns. Most likely after the war the Jesuits will be allowed in France. (To His Brother) : St. Raphael, Nov. 4, 1917. This afternoon we were invited to a tea at the villa of a French major. His ])lace is in the town of Frejus. It used to he ti Roman stronghold some two thousand years ago. An arena and aqueduct are still in a jiretty good state of preservation. The major has been wounded and is now convalescing. He is a great admirer of Americans. He is form- ing a sort of league among the best people in France to entertain Americans who are on leave so that they will not have to go to hotels. As he expresses it, they can come into our homes and learn what France really is. He s])eaks English perfectly and I learned more about the war yesterday, especially the Russian and Italian situations, than I had 1C

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maneuvered his maehine so that his propeller smashed into the tail ol ' the German, wreeking it and sending il to mother earth. With a wreeked i)ropeller and a dead ohserver he glided his maehine hack into the Freneh lines. Is he a man? (To Ills Father) : Tours, Franee, July IS. 1 am getting along great. I now tly the sehool maehine by inysell ' . My next tlight will he the start of my journeys. For to graduate IToin this sehool, we must take three journeys. The tirst is to the Fnglish sehool at Vendome in the morning, a distanee of about 70 miles and tly baek the same day. The next two tlights are over a triangular eourse of about 000 and -100 miles. Hying at an altitude of 2,000 metres. July 14th is the Frenchman’s July 4lh, and athletic games were held. We Americans won every event, coming first, second and third in each, except in the discus and the reason we lost that was because Wiherg had a sore arm and could not throw. I won the heavy weight boxing and middleweight. IJiey gave me a gold medal as big as a dinner ])late, with a lot of engraving on it that 1 haven’t as yet been able to translate. (To His Mother) ; France, July 28.. . Yesterday I t[ualitied as a ])ilot so I shall leave this school in a few days and learn water machines at another school. In France aviators are treated like kings. I ' his Hying game is great sport. The Frenchmen seem highly pleased with us Americans. They say we learn very fast. The only real hard part is making landings. The first thirty or forty times I made landings in the landing-class, I was a bucking bronco and broke more wires than you could shake a stick at. khey take you to a narrow valley about seven or eight miles from the school. The instructor sits in the front seat and you handle the machine. He never touches the controls. You make seven landings one way and eight the other. Just as soon as you attain a height of 800 feet you cut off the motor and come down. When you jiass from the landing-class you make your first hoj) alone. You are ])ut in a machine with a 00 H. F. rotary engine and a mechanic regulates the motor to full speed, while several others hold the machine. 4ien the engine is going well they let go and you tly from one end of the field to the other. If you get away with it, they put you in the same machine and let you make a circle of the field. You then do the same with a 80 H. P. and a 00 H. P. machine. After that you go to a spiral field and Hy to a height of 500 metres, cut off the motor and si)iral 10

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ever hoped to know. I ' d like to l)e able to tell you what he said, but I understand tliat mail is now being eensored, so why write for nothing? Xcvertlieless I don ' t sui)i)ose it would do any harm to say tliat the situ- ation is extremely serious. j| ' borrow or steal a eamera, get a picture of mamma and the governor and send them to me — not a eahinet photo but a snapshot. (To His Brother) : Paris, Feb. 5, 1918. Sorry to hear you are losing or wasting so much time on the questionnaire” business, whatever in the world that is. A man cer- tainly knows if he is between 21 and 30, and whether he has dependents. If I were doing the questioning I would look and see if a man was able to swing a gun, and I’d draft or reject him accordingly. What we need arc more men, less otliccrs and to throw out about 95% of the bureaus and then we might be able to fight. I shall get my commission when I go to Naval Headquarters at Lon- don, and be sworn in and thank God discharged as a “gob”. Fritz came over to visit us the other night and I didn’t wake up until the shock of the bomb that hit a block away, threw ' me out of bed. It sure did play havoc with the hotel it struck. Killed about 30 and tore otf three tloors, as clean as if they had been cut off by some monster razor. Scotland, Feb. 27, 1918. Arrived here yesterday and was dumped into quarters in some blooming duke’s castle. It certainly is a revelation to see how ' the Royal Flying Corps is run. If there is anything you do not understand, they go to the trouble of taking you up in a two-seater and explain wdiat you want to know. When I left Turnbery I was starting into a loop ten feet from the ground and thought nothing of it. Another great stunt was to play “chasing the fox.” One of the instructors, an American who has been with the British since the w ' ar started, and who w ' on the Victoria Cross twice, used to lead in this game. Once he came out of a cloud and flew ' , w ithout knowing it, into a s([uadron of ten Huns. He got six of them and the other four ran. He would take the fastest machine in the i)lacc and everyone wdio could get a machine would try to kcc]) uj) with him. He usually flew from six to ten feet from the ground and zoom over trees and houses. Believe me, it was the most exciting thing I have ever done. You had to be “on the job” or you w ' ould collide with some otber fool who had a faster or slower machine. Again the leader would go to five or six thousand feet and come dow n in a spin and all we ])oor amateurs wT)uld do the same. I thought I knew ' a little about flying until I came here, but I am slowly learning and 1 guess will toddle along if I get through here. ♦ j tQ Pq j ent out w ' ith an R. F. C. corps to get experience. The percentage is 85 to 1 for coming back. 12