Chapter II: Part 2

Progression in my work is steady; the upper classes are so full as to retard our immediate advancement. Our class is an exceptionally good one. I changed from the evening to the morning class some days ago, and I find it was a good move. The morning class is better, and advances faster. I am reading all the literature on aviation that is to be had about camp. I wish you would communicate with the M. I. T. Aviation Department and get from them a list of the books that they are using there in the study of aviation. From this list strike out _The Aeroplane Speaks_ by Barber, and _Military Aeroplanes_ by G. C. Loening; also strike from the list all books published before 1915, and from the remainder you can judge what will be of use to me. They should not be so elementary as to be a waste of time, nor so technical from a mathematical standpoint as to be boresome. Compact, reliable, up-to-date as possible information is what I want. If any of these seem worth sending, do them up in separate bundles and mail them at intervals of three or four days apart to prevent their all being lost. The less bulky, the more practical for my use. Mail these books to me—C/O _Mr. Van Rensselaer Lansingh, Technology Club of Paris, 7 Rue Anatole de la Forge, Paris, France_.

Mr. Lansingh keeps in constant touch with “Tech” students and communicates with their parents and with the Institute in case of accident. I will send my films to him and he will keep them after development. They are charged to my account and a set of prints returned to me. I will forward these prints to you. The films will be filed at the “Tech” Club of Paris. Any mail or cables sent to that address will be immediately forwarded to me, entailing about two days’ delay. I have opened a checking account, and deposited 1,000 francs with the Guaranty Trust Company of New York.

_August 14, 1917._

DEAR LITTLE MOTHER:

Nothing much has happened lately, so I have not been moved to write. You will remember I told you about getting a _marraine_; how she was born in Illinois, has two married daughters, lives in her country home at present, but will be in Paris during the winter months. Well, in her second letter she asked me if she could send me tobacco or anything else I might need, so I told her to send me candied fruit and golf stockings. They arrived yesterday. Say, but that fruit was good, and the stockings were the best I ever have seen. Dark brown, with a fancy top—not too brightly colored, of light and dark green. They are most too good to wear around here with my old khaki suit.

Most of the men are buying uniforms and thirty-five dollar aviator boots and eight dollar belts and all that, but I think it will be better to wait. If the United States takes us over, it will mean another change of uniform. Perhaps my uniform will come in after all. At all events, I’ll have to buy a light serge uniform which will be cool enough for summer wear and dressy enough to wear when accepting invitations. They spend a good deal of money on clothes here, and dress pretty lively when they go to Paris. Around camp, though, there is no uniform or discipline. We wear black and brown leather coats; red, black, brown, yellow, and blue trousers; sweaters, flannel shirts; and green vests and hats ranging from sombreros to the Turkish fez. This is a division of the Foreign Legion, you know. All manner of strange people are to be seen here. The _refectoire_, called the _ordinaire_ is the place where we feed, in the animalistic sense. A crowd gathers about the steps as meal time approaches, and clamors in a multitude of tongues. There are carefully dressed Frenchmen, with sensitive features and dainty little moustaches. There are heavy featured Frenchmen, with coarse manners and rough attire. There are sallow-skinned Portuguese in dandy dress who have an air of dissipated ennui, and yet have a solicitous cordiality which makes them strange and out of place. There are dark-brown Moroccans and Turcos with red fezzes, Assyrian beards, and brass studded belts. The Russians, with their gray-green sweat shirts belted at the waist, their bakers’ hats with highly colored diadems in front, and their loose black knee boots, stand aloof and talk little, but with vim. They somewhat resemble Irish in their features; and in the heart of the crowd, pressing close against the doors, as eager and clamorous and more rough in action than all, are the Americans, pushing, scrambling, elbowing, to be first into the _ordinaire_. Only their inexhaustible good humor prevents one from criticizing them. Once inside, there is a great scramble for the head of the table. Men jump up on the benches and step on and over the tables with their muddy hobnailed shoes in a vain endeavor to arrange themselves favorably. Then enterprising mechanics, who get one franc per person per month for their service, bring in stacked pans of food. These are large receptacles of a gallon capacity, and there is one stack to each table. In the top pan is meat—usually beef cut in chunks, sometimes tough, sometimes tender, always nourishing, never savory. In the second are boiled or baked or French fried potatoes, or beans or carrots, or _mélange_, similar to succotash. In the third and largest container is soup, which tastes better by artificial light, and is always the same. A weak solution of beans and cabbage and potatoes with scraps of war bread afloat. This is seldom tasted, and passes on from week to week until it becomes richer from many cookings, and is finally eatable. At the end of the meal comes the dessert, and it is the redeeming feature. Each man has a good big spoonful of _confiture_—apple butter.

The men at the head of the table have heaping platefuls of food; those in the middle get theirs level full; those at the end are dependent upon the foresight and generosity of those above them. But the food is wholesome and clean, and if a man eats to live it will nourish him satisfactorily. For those who live to eat, there are high-priced restaurants just over the fence which are run with the sole idea of getting the soldiers’ money.

This morning an order was issued that thirty of the men in the Penguin class who have had less than thirteen sorties are to leave for Tours at two o’clock. That is another school. My changing to the morning class enables me to get seventeen sorties, so I remain here. I am glad for that, because it means starting to learn on a new kind of aeroplane.

I could not make the facilities for printing pictures here suffice, so I have sent the films to Paris. It will be a couple of weeks before I can send them to you. I have taken very few pictures here, but intend to take some soon. The country hereabout is very beautiful and fertile; the sunsets have been simply glorious. The country is moist and rich in color. I am not much pleased with the group of men in this barracks and will change as soon as there is a vacancy in the one I like, but I sleep and read and walk. I am reading _Catherine de’ Medici_, by Balzac. It is rich in the history of Paris. Tell father to write me whenever he can. I wish you and father would get a little vest-pocket camera like mine and send me pictures whenever you can. I find that I have a passion for photographs. Those that I have I look at almost every day.

It’s good to hear that you are enjoying yourself at Black Oak. I hardly think you will be able to be miserable because Bob and I are not with you. Send any newspaper clippings of interest.

A man just came into the room with a rumor that sixty more men are to leave here in a couple of days, but does not say where they are going. At next writing I may be almost anywhere. Guess I’ll scout around and get some pictures right away. Well, much love to you, Mother dear, and to father, and to everyone else.

Your loving son,

DINSMORE.

_Bourges (Cher), August 19, 1917._

DEAR MOTHER:

Day before yesterday I got permission to come down to Bourges where the great cathedral of St. Etienne is. It is the third best cathedral in France, and is simply magnificent. I stayed till yesterday afternoon, and then returned to camp. Bourges is fifteen miles from Avord. Then I found we had _repos_ and did not go to class till tomorrow evening, so I came right back to Bourges on the first train. I will have been in the town two days and a half—well, nothing could be better. The town is built upon gentle slopes which fall away from the cathedral in its center. Houses are here ranging from just before the war back to 1200 A.D., perhaps further. Hundreds of architectural treasures are hidden in its narrow streets. A town of 45,000, it contains more good architectural designs than Chicago. But the cathedral—oh, how wonderful! I went straight to it, led by its towers showing above the house tops, and when it came into full view I stopped still and held my breath. Ponderous, massive, standing elegant, magnificent, mounting upward, delicate, airy in the skies. It held me and pressed so upon my feelings. What was it? The wonderful spirit of endeavor and faith and love of a hundred generations trying to please their God. The genius of seven centuries bending its power to produce a single masterpiece and then the endeavor of one small human being to grasp all this and hold it in one glance—as the sound of a hundred thousand voices cheering their parting army. It made me want to cry. I walked all around it twice. I took pictures of it from every angle in case something should happen to it or me. Then I went in. Oh, why try? It cannot be described. No wonder they kneel. My thoughts whispered to each other in awe. Faint glows in rainbow hues from the gorgeously stained windows played in the distance among the forest of columns. Across the altar, which seemed like a dwarf shrine in a giant citadel six candles twinkled, as if to demonstrate the smallness of the life of man. There before the altar knelt a priest, small, with bowed head. Then there was a stir in the air, slight at first, but growing with rising and falling crescendo, and the monotonous drone of the chant echoed and reechoed among the columns till it filled the whole vault, and then died away into religious silence. I turned and mounted the winding stair into the bell tower, counting the steps—four hundred and six—four hundred and seven—oh, here was something that I could grasp and describe. There were four hundred and seven six-inch steps. The tower was two hundred and four feet high.

The fine old warden of the keys told me he couldn’t take me over the place without a permit from the architect of the city, so I went to the architect’s home, only to find him out. When I returned to the cathedral, disappointed, the old man said that if I would return at nine in the morning he would take me through. At nine in the morning we started. We started up the tower and branched off at one of the little doors into the clerestory that led all around the inside of the church nave. Here we saw the organ. From here we mounted a dark, uneven passage within the walls which brought us out to the lowest stage of the roof, where the bases of the flying buttresses rest. We traversed the gutter, which was really a promenade, to the choir end of the cathedral. Here again we wound up a circular stairs within a great buttress pier and came out on the little narrow stair cut right up the flying buttress span to the main roof. Here we entered another little door, and found ourselves right in the garret over the altar. Under my feet was the great span of the main vault, and over my head the original joinery of the great peaked roof. In the darkness of the garret we passed great old windlasses for lowering the huge candelabra which hung in the nave. We traversed the garret to where through a little door a shaky scaffolding led over a deep pit to the tower of the prison. Here, again, was a huge chamber lighted by narrow slits in twenty-foot walls. We descended again and at every landing was a narrow cell which came to a point in a small slit which admitted light and indentation in the stone on which to sit. It was uncanny. It was a relief to come again to the day, where the bright sunlight played upon gargoyles and grotesques hiding in the carved stone.

Such a feast of the imagination! I could sit down now and write a novel laid in the confines of that pile. Then a fellow whom I met and I went down and explored the crypt. There were unlit shrines and unaired vaults which ended by a wall one could not see over, and the air was cool and damp and so bad a match would not burn. We went out to breathe fresh air, and dream in the sun.

YOUR SON.

_Ecole d’Aviation, Tours, August 28, 1917._

DEAR MOTHER:

I am so sore I’ve got to give expression to my feelings. You see, the truth of the matter is that I’ve been in the hospital five days with bronchitis, and though I am practically better now I have just heard that the doctor said I must stay eight more days. It will put me so much behind my class that I am furious. It all started with a stomach ache and high fever the day I arrived in Tours. They put me in the infirmary two days and then sent me to the hospital. I was pretty sick the first two days, but it’s all gone practically. My temperature is thirty-seven degrees centigrade. But it is all bull. I shall be 2,000 meters in the air when you receive this. So it will be the height of folly to think of worrying.

Tours is a pretty town on the river Loire, and I am waiting to go for a swim the first time my nurse takes me for a walk. They have not brought in my suitcase yet, so I must still use this paper. I have a number of sketches to finish up when the suitcase comes. Also it contains my books. This is a good place to study French. One of the men here was in Salonica two years and now has been in the hospital eleven months with colonial fever. Another cannot talk above a whisper. They are all generous and all think every American is deathly rich. One of the fellows set up a box of _petits gâteaux_ (French pastry), and I passed it around. As these cakes are a rare delicacy and considered quite dear, each man had to be pressed to take one. There is an English-speaking nurse here with a face like a blighted turnip. There is a gentle old Catholic Sister with great white wings on her hat, who is wonderful. She speaks only French, but she smiles in every language. I am getting a profound respect for the Catholic church.

Well, my suitcase came today and I am all cleaned up. I’ve finished two letters that were started, so guess I’ll close this one with love.

YOUR SON.

DEAR FAMILY:

It has been quite a while since I have written you, and this letter must be a short one, but lots of things have been happening. As a matter of fact, there is a good long letter half written in my note book, but it is not here yet.

Well, in the first place, I spent three days in Bourges. It is an aged town, was once the stopping place of Caesar, has been twice capital of France, and is rich in architectural treasures of all ages. The best thing there is the cathedral of St. Etienne, which I think you will find pictured and described in the encyclopedia. I spent my whole time sketching and sight-seeing, and will be perfectly contented to live within two hundred yards of it for a month. Traveling alone is the best way to see things. There are more doors that a single person can pass through. I traversed much worn, winding stairways, and chilling passages, darksome. I saw cells and pits of torture of the Inquisition. The youngest part of the cathedral is four times as old as the United States. For the architect, it is a jewel; for the historian a treasure; for the poet, a dream; for the conqueror, a tomb; for the soul-torn, a haven; and a place of worship for everyone. A French nurse whom I met this morning said, “Why do they destroy the churches? The churches belong to everyone. They are theirs as well as ours.”

It was fortunate I took the opportunity of seeing Bourges, for the day after I returned to Avord we were all sent here to Tours to another school of aviation, devoted entirely to Americans. There is another wonderful cathedral here. We are learning a little more about our prospects. There are both U. S. Army and Navy men at this camp. The conditions of this camp are infinitely better than at Avord. Sheets on the bed, much better food, tablecloths, china, a piano, and better system.

DINSMORE.

_September 4, 1917._

DEAR MOTHER:

It is rather tiresome sitting in the hospital when I am not sick in the least, but to suggest leaving is to insult the man with authority to release me. When he finally decides to let me go, it will take three days for the red tape to be carried through, which permits me to return to the Ecole d’Aviation. Meanwhile, I am losing several hours of flying. The good September season is just opening, and the days are delightful. We are given permission to leave the hospital and spend a day wandering around the historical city of Tours. I have been making pencil sketches and water colors, and it would really be very enjoyable if I were not so restless to get to work. You see, the time is a rather critical one. Anything is liable to happen; the United States Government may take us over. They want monitors in the States to teach flying, and if we are taken over we will probably be sent back without any fighting experience to act as monitors in the training school over there.

This is all very indefinite, but I do not like to get behind the bunch or be away from the camp at a time when these changes may be made; still there is no use fretting and I suppose things will work out all right. Anyway, I am not sick, and they must let me out pretty soon. I am on good terms with the chief doctor, who is a painter, and took an interest in my sketches and paintings. He offered to take me out to his house and show me his collection. I do not know when he will do so. I am trying to develop my general culture while there is opportunity, and have read six of Balzac’s novels, historical and otherwise. There is a wonderful chance to study architecture, and I am keeping up my sketching in water color, as well as studying a little French. Unfortunately, I left my history book in Paris, but will get what I can from Baedeker, and all the time I am storing up energy to use when the time comes. As to this prospect of the members of the Foreign Legion returning to America as monitors, most of the men do not like the idea of returning without some fighting experience. I am of that turn of mind. Men going back would be so much more able monitors if they had served on the Front, and they would be much more contented to return. There would be no doubt in my mind that I would remain in the French Foreign Legion if it were not for the fact that at present they are making monitors first lieutenants, with high pay, and a respectable office. Reason dictates that this will be changed very soon. I believe the men who are already officers will not be put back, however. If this should be the case, the time to enter United States service is now. Money is not everything, but three thousand a year is not to be ignored. This is all conjecture, and I have not made up my mind as to what to do, and shall not until fuller and more reliable information is given out.

The life here in the hospital is very pleasant. We wake at seven and have a little French breakfast of bread and coffee in bed; then we lie awake and read or doze for an hour or so. Rising at eight-thirty, we clean up and make our bed and read or write letters till lunch, which is a heavy meal served at eleven. By permission from the doctor, we are then at liberty to go out and spend our time as we please until five, when we eat again. Of late I have been going over and watching the full moon rise on the river Loire after supper; I retire at eight or nine.

The French have a strange custom of closing all their windows at night, but Americans are permitted to have one window open in their end of the room. French medical authorities are convinced that two open windows in the same room are very unhealthy and dangerous.

We have a good time wandering about the quaint, narrow streets, where strange people peer out of small, low windows, and undersized doors. The houses are so old that different materials and workmanship of a dozen repairs give their façades a mottled appearance of many centuries, which suggest a strange collection of antiques within. This is carried out by glimpses through windows whose shutters are hanging aslant or thrown open. Within are seen old four-poster beds with canopies and feather mattresses which are round and swelled up as if inflated. Wrinkled old women with queer caps squint as they peer out, while their hands rest in embroidery. Elsewhere, little low passageways open into crammed little courts, with uneven tile floors, scrub trees, and a half-open circular stone staircase. Natural flowers and grass grow from the moss-covered tile roofs.

Washing hangs from front windows, and people come out to empty their wash water and their refuse in the street gutter. Cats abound. I hope the sights and experiences of war will not wipe out all these quaint and pleasant sights which make Europe what it is.

YOUR SON.

DEAR FAMILY:

Things are speeding up. I’m out of the hospital. Came to the school Friday. Found I had about the best bed in our barracks and was in the smallest class with one of the best monitors—more luck. I am an hour and a half of flying behind the other fellows, but that is not bad.

Well, the hospital did not cure my bronchitis. That, however, is nothing but a chronic cough which will mend here better than there. What it did cure, however, was my distaste for my fellow-countrymen; the cure was absolute, and of greater value than my physical cure could have been. My, but it was good to get back with the bunch again. All my old interest in people has revived, and I am more than content.

And I have flown! Wonderful. Oh, it was great. Saturday evening I went up for fifteen minutes as a passenger. Then Sunday morning we went up on my first ten minute lesson. When we were a hundred meters off the ground and had gone a quarter of a mile, the pilot gave the controls over to me and rested his hands over the side while I drove entirely alone. It is more simple than driving an automobile because there is no road to watch. A glance at this side, a glance at that, to see that the wings are level. The throttle is set full at the outset and forgotten till you descend. There is a speedometer to watch and that is all.

Of course this is just driving in a straight line through good air. Ascent is dangerous; landing, an art in itself. Every curve has its corresponding angle of bank, and the angle varies according to the direction of the wind relative to line of flight. Perfect carburetion is essential at all altitudes, but that all comes later. An understanding of air currents and their effects must become instinctive; so, after all, the statement that it is easy applies only where someone else is there to do the worrying and look after the important details, any one of which stands between the here and the hereafter. The pilot said I did well on my first two sorties.

Monday I went in to paint with the doctor, but he was going to an Allied musical fête given by the hospital for the reeducation of wounded soldiers, and so I accompanied him. Like all charity affairs, some of it was very boresome, but there was some very good music and one singer from the Opéra Comique of Paris. I shall go another day to paint with the doctor.

This letter has been written out on the field, and as it has been continued through three classes I had better mail it. Have not heard from home for ten days or more. Had a couple of letters from my _marraine_.

SON.

_September 11, 1917._

DEAR FAMILY:

From the sky the world is just as beautiful as from the ground, but all in a different way. Fields and farms become checks and plaids in varied greens and browns. Stream necklaces and jeweled lakes bedeck the landscape around. Horizon lines jump back ten leagues, and clouds swim by in droves. The setting sun may rise again for him who mounts to fly. Man, groping about in great fields assumes his actual size and importance in the universe; instead of being the egotistical, dominating element in an unimportant foreground he shrinks to an atom, and the eternal infinite engulfs him. I can imagine a future life as a soul speeding through space, existing upon a sensation, a boundless view, and a breath of air.

The flying is progressing well. The monitor said tonight that he seldom had seen a pupil so apt, that I was doing well and would take up landings tomorrow. Twice today he let me take the aeroplane off the ground. I’ve had an hour and fifteen minutes of flying now and will soon catch up with the class, as far as ability is concerned. Our monitor is a wonderful teacher and a splendid flyer.

I’m just as busy as I care to be. Up at five o’clock; work, six to ten; lecture, ten to eleven; repose to three; lecture, three to four; work four to nine. I haven’t had time to mail this letter, but I’ll do it tomorrow.

Well, I’m simply wild about this life. The country is beautiful; châteaux abound; pretty farms—but I must go to bed.

Good night,

DINSMORE.

One thing I forgot to mention—the machines we are running now take all the strength a man has to operate one of them in rough weather. After a ten minute ride, my right arm and shoulder aches. The story of an aviator landing and fainting from physical exhaustion does not seem as far-fetched as it did.

DEAR FAMILY:

My first solo ride was this morning. It consisted of going in a straight line for half a mile at a height of two hundred feet. Everything went finely—no fear, excitement, nor difficulty. Oh, how I am going to love it! I am inclined to believe that the nervous strain of driving will be less than that of driving an automobile after I have mastered the technique. Imagine being lost in the clouds, having to fight for one’s life in a storm! Great stuff! One man had his engine stop at low altitude, went into a wing slip, and smashed his machine to atoms. He bruised his knee, but goes up tomorrow. Some of the final tests consist of _petits voyages_ about the country—a couple of hundred miles. This is the château country, and several of the men have been having experiences. One man’s motor went bad and made him descend near a little town. He was arrested as a German spy, but on proving his identity was released by the mayor of the town. When he returned to his machine he found a Renault limousine waiting for him. The liveried chauffeur asked if he would favor the madame by taking dinner with them. He granted the favor, and rode back through the streets down which he had been led thirty minutes before by a _gendarme_. He came to a great château, was introduced to some twenty girls (guests) among which were six girls of his age, both French and English. He was given a room and bath and fitted out with clothes which belonged to the son of the house, in aviation service at the Front. It was three days before he could get his machine fixed. During that time he was the chief guest, escorting the hostess into the dining room, canoeing, pheasant hunting, motoring, and playing tennis with charming girls. He had a small car at his disposal, and a valet to attend him. They called him “Sammy” and urged him to return. It was the home of the Councillor of Gasoline of France. What luck! Half the men that go out have some such story when they return, but this man received the “aluminum lawnmower.” It is everybody’s hope to have some such trouble.

We are so busy now that I cannot write as much as I should like to. I am trying to keep up some other correspondence.

Your ever loving,

DINS.

_September 14, 1917._

DEAR FAMILY:

Major Gros of the United States Flying Division arrived here at ten o’clock last night and gave us a talk. We are given the choice of going into the U. S. Army as first lieutenants at $2,600 to $2,700 a year, or remaining in the French service. I shall change immediately. It is the advice of all officials, both French and United States. We are to be examined today, and certain papers are to be signed applying for service in aviation. In a few weeks we sign into the service if we are accepted; meanwhile we continue our training without interruption, being corporals in the U. S. Army until we obtain our brevet (pilot’s license). Thereafter we automatically become first lieutenants and continue our training in French schools, in French machines, with French instructors. We are better off all around, and all well satisfied. Dr. Gros, an American doctor, is the man who gave me fatherly advice. We received two hundred francs from him for this month’s pay from the Franco-American Flying Corps. Things are still turning out just as I had hoped—no worry, all happy, wonderful experience.

Thank you for sending the things. They will, no doubt, reach me in due time. There is nothing else I need, thank you, and most of the men are not in need. Everything will be supplied us by the U. S. Army. Already its organization over here is far superior to that of the French. United States newspapers have much better war news than French papers. Incidentally, even France is not free from the graft hookworm, and rumors that float around here are just as wild and untrue as anywhere. My _marraine_ sent me a box of nice candy the other day. It arrived just at a time when I was blue and a little envious of others receiving letters. When the candy came they were all keen to have a _marraine_, and refused to believe she was a married woman, and all that. It filled the bill, and the stomach.

The other day I did about a month’s washing and saved about two dollars. Tomorrow I shall darn and sew on buttons. There are a few good popular novels around here and I am enjoying them. There is not time enough for me to go around and see the châteaux here. Extra time goes for sleep. My, but I am interested in art and architecture. As we go to our field, we pass along a great, tree-arched national road, past the entrance of an old twelfth-century château. Our field is some five miles from camp, and is entered by a country road which passes through an ancient vineyard, with big stone granaries, and a pond. We picked berries and pears about the borders of the field. Little children come out with baskets of peaches, plums, and pears for sale very cheap, and in the morning a woman who speaks English comes out with coffee, and marmalade sandwiches. That’s our breakfast, and then we fly and look at the sunrise.

It’s time to go to bed. I’ll write more tomorrow.

_September 15, 1917._

We are now taking our physical examinations. Mine has been perfectly normal; they found nothing wrong with my heart, and a special examination of my lungs (by request) showed nothing abnormal, though I have still a little bronchial cough. It looks as though we were to have a few days of rain. I can stand it for sleep. Just received my two hundred francs, and I feel rich. I am going to deposit it, as I have a hundred francs left from last month. I am pleased with the financial outlook. At the end of the war I’ll have enough money to travel, or get married, or finish “Tech.” If the war lasts long enough I may have enough for all three. If anything happens to me my life insurance pays for Robert’s education, but there is no particular reason why anything should happen to me. I am not counting on it.

Say, I have so many clothes that they are becoming positively a burden. When we enter the U. S. Army in two or three weeks we will be provided with a complete outfit of U. S. Regulars uniform. When we have our brevet we get a complete leather uniform. My khaki uniform has not been washed since the beginning and is all covered with grease spots and “tacky” looking, but it is comfortable, and I saved two hundred francs by waiting. The sweater you knitted for me is doing good service—so light and neat inside a coat. It is very handy. That picture of Robert’s is mighty good. Tell him to write to me. I just received my pictures. Printing is very expensive here, and the work is not very satisfactory. I hesitate to let them develop my pictures. Our time is filled now all right. I must sleep some more. That is one of the great requisites in aviation.

You might send me things to eat now and then. Dates, figs, candied fruits, fruit cake, candied pineapple, fig newtons, and salted nuts. They come through pretty well in about a month or so, and keep well. It is best to sew cloth around the package before putting on the outside cover. It’s pretty nice to receive packages.

Your son,

DINSMORE.

_Personnel Dep., Aviation Section, A. E. F.,
45 Ave. Montaigne, Paris, September 19._

DEAR FAMILY:

The above heading is the official address of the U. S. Aviation Section, and the one which you must use from now on. Yesterday I got a flock of letters—three of mother’s, one of father’s, one of Robert’s, two or three others, and a bunch of the “_Tech_” magazines. The “_Tech_” has more news of vital interest than any paper I see over here.

Tension is rather high in camp. Major Carr, when he was here, told the French lieutenant that there were 500,000 men in the States anxious to fill our places. Since then five men had been _radiated_ (a polite French word for “fired”), for breaking machines. Everybody is frightened. The men had been sent up from our class, two and three a day. One man is in the hospital, one in Paris, and today the last two go up, so at present I am the only one in the class. The hospital put me behind all right. Though I should like to catch up with the other men and would be willing to take a chance, yet it is not the best way to learn. They say a “slow beginning is time well spent,” and I am with an excellent instructor. I could not learn faster than I can with him, so it is for me to be content. The men that were _radiated_ were men who had been sent up too quickly.

There is a bad fog this morning, so I guess we will not get any work. Many things interfere with aviation training. Sun makes heat waves, fog bars the view, wind makes it dangerous, yet we get a good deal of flying at that. When we are _lâched_ (released) we have a machine of our own and go out and fly whenever we feel like it. That will be fine.

I went to Tours day before yesterday and had a swim. The Loire River is very swift, and it was all I could do to swim up it thirty feet. They have the natatorium floating in the river, and have it fixed with a strainer to hold the people in. I would like to swim down the river about ten miles, floating with the current, but it is against the law to swim in the open. Day before yesterday was the first time I’ve been swimming this year.

We have a great time in our barracks. Every night there are a number of rough houses. Last night we had a real fight. One vulgar, loud-mouthed fellow called a smaller man the forbidden name, and the little fellow lit into him. Everybody wanted to see the vulgar one cleaned up—and they did. After a couple of blows the big one clinched in the strangle hold, but the little one was a college wrestler with a neck like a bull. He squirmed around in a circle and nearly broke the big man’s arm; then he punched the big one’s face. They knocked over some beds and rolled on the floor; then they got up and talked till they got their breath. The big one was dissipated, and shaky on his feet. The light man lit into him again. Neither of them were fighters, but they meant well. The heavy one lunged with a hammer swing, missed, and the light man came in short and quick on his jaw. The heavy man reeled back to the wall, but came again and clinched before both eyes were shut. The little man went under, but it was only from weight, and he was on top in a minute. He rubbed the big one’s face in the floor, and then let him up. Then the yellow streak showed up. The big one sat down on the edge of the bed, whimpering and holding his arm, which had been fractured. He said he wasn’t licked, but had enough for the night. The crowd mumbled disapproval and went off to bed. A few gullible ones stayed to fix up the big man’s arm. He cried like a baby. He hasn’t shown his face for two days.

One of the fellows just tells me I have been shifted to another monitor who is very violent, so I do not know what the outcome will be. The fog grows thicker; we shall not work today. The greatest lesson of war is patience. There are many days in which we do not work. I am trying to use that time to rest and build up for what may come. The way things are run here prevents one from having a system by which he may utilize his time, so I work by inspiration. The time will come—and a long time it will be—when I must work by routine, so I guess it will not hurt to work by inspiration for a little while. My stay at the hospital must have done me good. I am in splendid condition, and very healthy and happy.

YOUR SON.

_September 28, 1917._

DEAR FAMILY:

Everything is going fine, but slow. I was passed to the next solo class today and will be on my brevet work within a week, so I should be delighted—but I am as blue as the devil. What I want is to see and talk with a good, beautiful, splendid, charming American girl.

I am sleeping and eating like a beast. Made a little water color today; had a few letters from my _marraine_, but no one here has heard from home for weeks. I am going into town today, just for a change. It would be easy to get into a rut here. I love these little French pastries, and fill myself full of them every time I go to Tours. There is one place where you can get ice cream. Just imagine, and Tours once the capital of France! There is a great big old twelfth-century castle built by the Norman lords not far from here. I am going up and see it tomorrow. I must find some way to get around to these châteaux near here. Perhaps I shall take a week’s _permission_ after my brevet. If I do not break a machine I’ll go back to Avord for Nieuport work, but I’m pretty good on landing, so if luck is with me there will be no difficulty. Robert’s letter just arrived, telling me of long pants and hoping his brother is out of the crowd of unclean men.

YOUR SON.

_September 29, 1917._

DEAR FAMILY:

Today I was called to the top sergeant of the U. S. Army here and presented with a telegram thrice forwarded from Washington asking after the health of one Dinsmore Ely. I reported that I was in the hospital two weeks with a slight attack of bronchitis, which did not confine me to my bed. After being reprimanded for the folly of mentioning such a sickness, I was dismissed. Where men are being killed at the rate of fifty thousand a month, note that it was a most absurd thing to clog official wires over the ailment of a private. Incidentally, it marked him as a pampered pet. Lately, Reno, the aviator, was reported dead and mourned in world-wide publication. He later entered a Paris bank to draw his account and return on _permission_ to America. He will arrive before this letter. This goes to prove that absolutely no report can be believed. There are undoubtedly a great many aviators listed as dead who are prisoners in Germany. The only news you can rely upon will be from my hand. I am in perfect health now, and will continue to be as long as I live. You will hear nothing more in regard to my health until my obituary notice reaches you, and as that will not be from me, you will be foolish to put any trust in it. My letters will be most irregular and undependable, by accident or intention, so you need not try to guess my health from them. Also keep in mind that one blue evening may give rise to more dissatisfaction than a deadly disease. It has been a custom of the Elys to keep the wires hot when one of them had a cold. That must stop in war time. If you people are determined to let your imagination turn your hair gray, nothing on God’s earth can stop you. In spite of the fact that I am an Ely, I am only one of the eight million men whose lives are worth the ground covered by their feet. If you do not believe unmentioned health is the best way to prevent worry, wait a year and see. You need not try to persuade me to keep you informed on my health. Meanwhile the war will continue as usual, I doing my part. Do not take this letter as curt, it is just entirely lacking in romance. I am in perfectly good humor; also I am thinking just a little clearer than my parents did when they telegraphed around the world in war times to find out if I had recovered from a minor attack of bronchitis. You must have the same faith in me to look after my physical health as after my moral.

The _Tribune_ is coming and it seems good, but you would be surprised how little current events are touched upon here. What we crave most in reading is romance. The _Saturday Evening Post_ fills the bill more than anything else. If you could send me a subscription of that for six months, it would be greatly appreciated. There are plenty here, but by that time will be sent to different posts.

I wrote to Robert today, and will probably write to him quite often. Wish he would find time to write to me frequently, at least once a week.

YOUR SON.

_Ecole d’Aviation, Tours, September 30, 1917._

DEAR MOTHER:

Something pleasantly interesting happened today. Early this morning Loomis in the bed next to mine asked me if I would join him in a party with some friends of his. They were to come out to the school for us, so I borrowed a blue French uniform and stuff and dolled out as fine as you please. The friends came at ten-thirty in a touring car. The party consisted of M. and Mme. Romaine, who were our host and hostess, and Mlle. Gene Recault, and her future father-in-law. She was very pretty, charming, and entirely French. Her father-in-law, M. Vibert, was as jolly as a youth of twenty-five. They were all so cordial and generous, and entirely agreeable. We went to Tours and called at a music store, where Mlle. Gene purchased some music. Then we went to the hotel at which we had spent the night, and she gave us the treat of a wonderful voice. It was too strong for the small salon, but when she lowered, it was delightful. She was the leading pupil in the National School of Music at Paris, and withal, modest and charming. We proceeded to a café in the Rue National where we had a good breakfast at twelve-thirty. The meal was lively, and we were able to take an interesting part in the conversation, thanks to the sympathetic courtesy of our companions. M. Vibert was full of pranks and humor, so at the end of the meal I started to use a nutcracker on a peach, and Mlle. Gene took it from me in consternation and showed me how the French peeled a peach and cracked nuts; so I cracked the peach nut and ate the kernel and showed them the American method of cracking nuts under the heel. They were extremely considerate of my ignorance. After dinner we got into the machine and rode to a wine shop where we had some tea. It always takes half the meal for me to make new acquaintances understand that I do not drink wine or coffee. The family asked me to come out and stay with them during our _permission_. We returned to the school about three-thirty. It was a mighty pleasant Sunday.

All the mail is being held somewhere—and we want letters. I get about two letters a week from _marraine_, which fills the gap between those from home.

With love,

YOUR SON.

_October 2, 1917._

DEAR FAMILY:

Yesterday’s mail brought a good long letter from father and about fifteen Chicago papers. It simply was good to hear the doings in Chicago and suburbs. I imagine there will be a stack of letters come in some of these days. A letter came from my _marraine_ saying I must surely stay with her while in Paris.

We have just been out in the field, but wind brought rain up from the south and we returned. When we got back, the mail was in. Oh, golly! Thirteen letters for _me_. It has been a pretty long wait, but they came in a bunch. Letters ranging from September 2 to 12 arrived. My, but it’s a pleasure to hear from father. Of course your letters are just as good, but they come natural, as you have been always the official correspondent, but father’s letters combine surprise with novelty, and the newspaper clippings are so interesting. They appeal more than the newspapers themselves, because they allow me to follow the interests of my friends through my family. How they do marry off! It will be a different country, a different town, even a changed family when I return. I am not quite sure which is changing the faster—father or Robert. Mother seems to remain the same. Being constantly in my own company keeps me from seeing a change in myself. It is natural that Robert should develop rapidly, but father has changed so greatly that I can hardly keep pace with him. He seems to be entering a new youth from the day he ran up the stairs at 1831 to put out the fire in your room started by my little alcohol engine—I recall him as a silent, serious, weary-with-work father, whose only real friends were in books and in his office. He was nervous and particular, and never would tell me when he was satisfied with what I tried to do—kind, patient, silent, oh, so careful. I could not move him, win him, nor understand him. This was, of course, after my curls were cut. After he had been my Santa Claus and birthday godfather and Easter fairy in granting my every wish, then came the high-school period when I would have given anything to have really heard his approval, when I no longer feared him nor yet appreciated him. At college I wished to be worthy of his name. There I learned something of men—and, oh, how proud of him I was Junior Week! But from my Christmas vacation there was a great change—the barrier was broken and I began to see in him a future friend and companion, the equal of whom I had not met among all my friends. Of course the change has been mostly in me, and my growing point of view; but, still, father has grown jollier and freer, more witty and talkative, and more intimate with people and nature and animals. I have wondered at the causes: two, anyway, were prosperity and Robert—God bless him and our happy home. To the other, no legend, story, or orator ever succeeded in giving to it its due; that single word more than godly, more than eternal, a title, a prayer, a caress, guardian angel of the mind—_mother_!

Good night, dear family,

DINSMORE.

DEAR FAMILY:

A few days of poor weather is confining us. There is time to think, and time to do everything you think of—and then time to think.

One of my lines of thought has been how I might make a little money on the side. Our spare hours come in such small classes that it does not permit me to go about seeing the châteaux of this country, or to go to Tours a great deal to sketch, except when it rains; then is not the time to go. Mother mentioned giving my letters to some paper, I believe. I know that a great many people over here are receiving quite a nice little pay for just such letters. I wish I could work it some way, but as I speak of it I feel a queer family pride which would spoil it, I suppose. For some reason or other, there are only certain ways of commercializing one’s assets without loss of pride. Is this loss of cosmopolitanism, and an approach to caste? I guess not. I can sketch, but that is not great fun when you haven’t interesting subjects and good weather. I can make some post cards and try coloring them, which would not be bad practice withal. Well, I’ll be going to Paris soon, and laying in a good supply of good books.