Classic Audiobook Collection - Above the French Lines by Stuart Walcott ~ Full Audiobook [history]

Episode Date: August 19, 2023

Above the French Lines by Stuart Walcott audiobook. Genre: history Above the French Lines presents World War I through the intimate, immediate voice of Stuart Walcott, a young American who crosses the Atlantic in 1917 to learn to fly and serve with the French aviation forces. Told as a sequence of letters written between July 4 and December 8, 1917, the book traces his transformation from eager trainee to combat-ready pilot, capturing the routines and hazards of early airfields: punishing instruction, mechanical troubles, weather that can turn lethal in minutes, and the constant pressure to prove yourself in a brand-new kind of warfare. Walcott writes to friends and family with a mix of humor, longing, and hard-earned seriousness, painting vivid scenes of barracks life, friendships among fellow fliers, and the tightening suspense as he nears the front. As patrols begin to carry him above the trenches and into enemy-held skies, the letters become a record of courage under uncertainty, where ideals of service collide with the stark realities of combat. Part personal testimony and part wartime document, this is a moving portrait of youth, duty, and the cost of taking flight when the world is at war. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 00 (00:07:30) Chapter 01 (00:14:48) Chapter 02 (00:51:52) Chapter 03 (01:30:05) Chapter 04 (01:31:22) Chapter 05 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Introduction to Above the French Lines. Letters of Stuart Walcott. American Aviator July 4th, 1917 to December 8, 1917. Introduction From the Princeton Alumni Weekly of January 30, 1918. It is now seven weeks since the dispatches from Paris reported that Stuart Walcott was attacked by three German airplanes and brought down behind the German lines. after he himself had brought down a German plane in his first combat on December 12, 1917, and that it was feared he had been killed. But even now after the lapse of nearly two months, it is not definitely known whether his fall proved fatal, or whether the earnest hope of his friends that he is still alive may be realized. The reports are conflicting. A cable message of January seven said that in Germany it was reported that S. Walcott had been killed by a on December 12 near Saint-Soupley.

But Dr. Walcott received a letter on January 19, which holds out some hope that the fall was not fatal and that his son may be a prisoner in Germany. This letter dated September 17th is from a young aviator named Lachran, who was Stuart Walcott's roommate at the flying station. He gives this report of what was told to him by an observer and pilot who saw the combat. On the 12th of December at 11.30 a.m., there were five pilots to go out on high patrol, including Stewart and myself, but I was prevented from going because of a wrenched ankle. Stuart and the other pilots left here at 1140 a.m. for high patrol, which means they are to fly above the thousand

meters. Two of the pilots had to return because of motor trouble, leaving one pilot whom Stuart was following. At 12.50 a.m., they ran across. crossed a German by-place machine. The French pilot attacked first, but had to withdraw because of trouble with his machine gun. He reports that the Spod, Stuart Walcott's machine, that had been following him, he less saw a thousand meters above him, or the German. Also that the German had gone back over his lines. The infantry and artillery observers report the French pilot's attack and combat, and that six minutes later the German returned over our lines, and that the spa that was seen flying at a very high altitude, came down and attacked the German, and

seceded and bringing him down in flames. In doing so, he had to fly quite a way over the German territory, and that the Spod had started to return when three German fighting machines were seen diving on him and forcing him down. The spot was last seen doing a nose dive perpendicular behind their lines. That is all the information I have received up to date. This is what makes all the boys think that Stuart is alive. A nosedive perpendicular is used very often in combat, but is very dangerous, as it is very difficult for one to come out of and yet have their motor running. That reason might force him to land. Also, there was very little chance for him to get away from them by flying, as they were above, and the only sensible thing to do was to land. And as we were only

three days in this sector, the French think that he might have been mixed up. as to the direction for home, or that he was slightly wounded and could not turn his machine toward the French lines. I've tried every possible way to get information about Stuart. I've set the numbers of his motor and machine to Major S. Unintelligible, who was trying to trace it through the Red Cross surface. One of the French pilots of this is quadrille, who was a very good friend of your boy, shot down a German biplane on 13th of December. The machine fell behind our lines. The pilot was dead before reaching the ground, but the observer was only slightly wounded, so the boys of that Esquadrille have asked the commander of the group if we could be permitted

to go and talk to the German, as he may know something about the spot that fell behind his lines the day before. We hope to know whether he will be permitted to do so or not, tomorrow. It takes two months before we receive the report from Germany officially. In the meantime, you will read all sorts of reports in the newspapers, but I will cable or have Captain Peter Boll do so by getting the news that is true. The case of Buckley, the American who fell September 5th, was reported as being in flames from 5,000 meters down and fell in German territory. The observers reported that it landed on its back and burned completely. His parents were notified of his death. newspapers reported the terrible death he died well sir on november twenty fifth we received a letter from him saying he was enjoying the best of health and was satisfied with his surroundings in the prison camp in germany

so we are all hoping the same for stuart i have all stuart's personal things and will give them to captain bold the first chance i get mr walcott it is beyond words for me to try and tell you how grieved we all are above Stuart, and how great a loss it is to the squadrille for him to be away. He was more than liked by every member and officer, and gave promise of doing great things, was always up in his machine trying to better himself in combat flying. There was never a minute that he was idle if it was possible for him to fly, and never a more generous and kinder boy. Only the night before the patrol he last went out on, he gave me every care in the world, got up during the night to make sure I was comfortable and to do anything he could for my ankle. From one who has been with Stuart through all his training and roommate on the front,

yours respectfully, E.J. Lachran. This letter was written before the cable dispatch of January 7th from the International Red Cross, which seems to establish definitely the fact that Stuart Walcott gave his life in support of the endeavor to make the world safe for democracy. In further and final evidence, a letter dated February 5, 1918, informed Dr. Walcott that the Red Cross agent in Paris had reported Stuart Walcott's grave has been found. An accompanying map from Lockhart shows the spot where Stuart Walcott fell is on a hill a little south of St. Supley. Benjamin Stewart Walcott was of New England ancestry. His earliest known American forebear was

Captain Jonathan Walcott of Salem, Massachusetts, 1663 through 1699. Later, one of Captain Jonathan's descendants, Benjamin Stewart Walcott, served in a Rhode Island regiment during the Revolutionary War. On his mother's side, two ancestors served in the Continental Army and in the Revolutionary War. End of introduction. From above the French Lines the French lines by Stuart Walcott. This Libravox recording is in the public domain. From Princeton to France. Stuart Walcott was a senior at Princeton in the winter of 1916, 1917. In view of his approaching graduation in the spring, his father wrote to him that he at best

begin to think about what he was going to do after graduation, in order that he might get on an independent basis as soon as practicable. In response under date of January 7th, 1917, he wrote, You spoke of my being independent after I graduate in the spring. If I go to Europe, as I want to, to drive an ambulance or in the airplane, I will be doing a man's work and shall be doing enough to support myself. If the work is unpaid, it is merely because it is charitable work, and as such is given freely. If you want to pay my way, I will. consider it not as dependence on you, Father, but as a partnership that may help the allies and their cause. I will furnish my services and you the funds to make my services available.

If not, I will be willing to invest the small amount of capital, which has accumulated in my name. I've been thinking of this work in Europe for over a year now, and I'm still very strong for it. I don't know what the effect will be on myself, but if it will be of service to others, I think that is something I ought to do. Being assured that the expenses would be provided for, he then began an investigation as to the best method of procedure to obtain training as an aviator. In a letter dated January 26, he said, many, many thanks for sending me the book on the French Flying Corps by Winslow. I read half of it the night that it came and stayed up late last night to finish it. It gives a very straight, interesting and apparently not exaggerated account of the work over there.

which has made it somewhat clearer to me, just what it is that I want to get into. Now I'm even more anxious than I was before to join the service over there. The more that I think about it and the more that I hear of it, the more desirous I am of getting into the flying corps. The man like Winslow with a wife and daughter dependent on him is willing to take the risk involved. I see no reason why I should not. You mentioned the ambulance service in your last note.

I've thought of that quite a little. and would definitely prefer the aviation. The ambulance is worthwhile, I think, and that he gives one an opportunity to be of great service to humanity, but not so much as the other. There will be a number of my classmates who will enlist in the American ambulance this spring,

but the air service appeals to me. He then made arrangements with the American representatives of the Lafayette Esquadrille to go to France on the completion of his college year. On January 29th, he wrote, I will get a physical examination in a few days. In regard to getting the training over here first, I do not think it would be worthwhile. The instruction over there would be firsthand, bright, for a definite purpose, and on the whole superior to what I could get here.

I could also be picking up the language and the hang of the country at the same time. On February 24th, you receive word that his papers presented with his application for admittance to the Franco-American Flying Corps, assured him on their face of a welcome when he presented himself in Paris. He was informed that if he utilized his spare time and availing himself of any and every opportunity to familiarize himself with flying, it would shorten his stay in the student Aviator School in France. On March 26, he wrote, I haven't been able to find out anything definite about the school at Mineola, as yet no change has been announced to my knowledge in reference to hastening up the course in event of

coming war. Over a hundred men have left college, Princeton, already to start training for the mosquito fleet, and the rest of them are drilling every afternoon. What do you think of the advisability of stopping college and going to some aviation school? Considering that it takes several months to become at all useful as an aviator, and a war is practically inevitable now, I think it would be wise to get started right away. And again on April the 3rd, I saw in the morning paper that the American flyers in France would be transferred to American registry immediately after the declaration of war. When you next see General Squire, I wish you would sound him on the probability of a force being sent to France to learn to fly according to French methods. This is the one thing

above all others that I want to get into. There is any chance of that I do not want to get involved in anything else. It is quite certain that seniors who leave college now to go into military work will receive their degrees. I would not object to losing the work, as it is not my present intention to keep on with theoretical chemistry, and that is what I'm devoting my time to this spring. From the standpoint of education alone, I think that my time could be more profitably spent in the study of aviation. Leave was granted by the university, and on April 6th, Stuart Walcott, was appointed a special assistant to Mr. Sidney D. Waldron, Inspector of Aeroplanes and Aeroplane Motors, signal service at large. He immediately reported to Mr. Waldron and worked with him through April.

May 1st he went to Newport News, Virginia. May 2nd, he reported, My first trip up was this afternoon with Victor Carlstrom. We were out 16 minutes and climbed 3,500 feet. It was all very simple getting up there, a little wind and noise and some bumps and pockets in the air, a glorious view of the harbor. Then we started to come down. First I saw the earth directly below, through the plains on the left, then the horizon made a sudden wild lurch and Newport News appeared directly below on my right. This continued for a little while, and then we started down at an angle of about 30 degrees to the perpendicular, turning as we went. I later learned that Karlstrom had executed a few steep banks or sharp turns, and then spiraled

down. It ended with a very pretty landing, following with a series of banks to check speed, Flying from my first impression is a very fascinating game, and the one I want to stay with for a while. I have signed up for 100 minutes in the air. While this hundred minutes will not make me a flyer by any means, I think it is well worth the while in that it gives me a little element of certainty in going abroad. I will know if all goes well that I am not unable to fly. The next day he wrote, Two flights this morning, 25 minutes in toto.

The greatest sport I ever had. wonderful work i did most of the work after we got up a safe distance having obtained a certificate of one hundred minutes flight and passed the necessary physical examinations he left for france arriving at bordeaux may thirty first and soon reported at avhoed for training end of section one from princeton to france section two of above the french lines by stuart walcott this libravark recording is in the public domain stuart walcott's letters letters one through eleven one a vod july fourth nineteen seventeen 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 one hundred and fifty 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 legionnaires ball-players millionaires and tramps Not too good a crowd according to most standards, but the worst bumps may make the best aviators. There is 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 in their necks. The Americans have an endless streak of luck and be able to fall out of the air and collect themselves uninjured from amidst a pile of kindling wood which was the machine. 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 Bosch at a high altitude. It looks over here as though there will be about two years more of war, judging from what

most people say. It is to be hoped that after 12 to 18 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'm glad that we have at least come into it and that it will be no halfway 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. Two. The Call de Aviation Militère. Avord, Cher, France. Friday, July 13th, 1917.

You see, it's Friday, the 13th. 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. The roller, or roller class, which I smashed in has the same machine as those that fly with a 45p motor, only it is throttled down. We are supposed to keep it on the ground, just about ready to fly, but not quite getting up, a speed of about 30 miles per hour. When there is the slightest one, we cannot roll because the wind turns the tail around and swings the machine in a circle, a wooden horse, Cheval de Bois. I wrote about the end of the list Saturday, and the wind had come up as the day got on. Work stops at 8.30 a.m. always, because there's too

much wind. My first sortie or trip went okay with a considerable breeze on the tail, but on the second there was too much wind, and after I got going pretty fast, around she went. The wind caught under the inside wing, and up it went. Smash went the outside wheel and a crackle of busting wood. All the front framework of wood that holds the motor was smashed. A pretty bad break. The monitor was a bit mad and talk to me in a bit of French. The next morning I was called in to see the chief of the Bellerot School, Lieutenant de Chavons, a very nice officer. He told me that my monitor was not satisfied with me,

that he had told me to do something, cut the motor when the machine started to turn, three separate times, and that each time I had intentionally disobeyed, that if anything like that happened again, I would be radiated, discharged from the school. That was quite the first I had ever heard. heard of it, and I was so mad at the monitor that I could have kicked him in the head. I tried to explain to the lieutenant, but he never heard a word, so I just gurgled with wrath and didn't do anything. But yesterday we got another monitor, it was a different sort. The class after Roller is

decolle. It is the same machine, but one gets off the ground about a meter or two, then slacks up on the motor and settles to Earth. It is strictly forbidden to decolet in the Roller class. This morning I had a sortie in the roolet, and all of a sudden noticed that I was in the air a bit, managed to keep it straight and get out of the air without smashing. The monitor said nothing, so I decolade on all the sorties. When I got out, the monitor explained that it was strictly forbidden to go off the ground in the rolleer class, that I shouldn't have done it, and then asked me if I would like to go up to the other class.

Whereupon consenting, I am now in the decollet class, leaving 16 rather peaved Americans who arrived in the roolet the same time. I did, who can perform in the Roller quite as well as I can, and who will remain in the Roller for some time yet. They've no grudge against me, however, as it was only a streak of luck on my part. Later in the morning I had some sorties in the Decolère, and got up two or three meters. The wind was too strong, so my trips were a bit rough, but nothing was damaged, so hurrah for Friday, the 13th. 3. July 17, 1917.

The work has been going very well since last I wrote you, which was only two or three days ago. I told you about at last, leaving the Blessed Roller. I never was so relieved in my life. The first evening in the De Collet class I was requisitioned to turn tails and the morning after there was too much wind to work. The Decale is the one where you go up two or three meters and settle down by cutting speed. The first time I had three sorties in the wind, bounced around a lot but did no damage. the next time was first thing in the morning two meters up on the first four or five on the fifth strictly against orders i even had to piquet point the engine toward the ground a little which is not at all comil fa in the de

but these frenchmen are funny chaps sometimes they will get terribly angry and punish one for disabang and again they will be tickled to death with it if i had smashed while doing more than i was told to there would have been a lot of trouble as it was no objection and the monitor personally conducted me to the piquet class with a very nice recommendation now there are two piquet classes one with a pieced about a quarter of a mile long in which one is supposed to do little more than de get up about five metres and pique a tte petit puix hardly at all after comes the advanced piquet with a much longer piece on which one can get up to one hundred meters three hundred feet on my first sortie in the piquet i was told to roll on the ground all the way so continuing my policy did a low decolle next i was supposed to do a two-meter decolle so one up ten and had ten sorters in the class one morning getting as high as i could about twenty meters and went to the advanced piquet that night last night four sorters there last night were the machine with a poor motor so it didn't get up over a hundred feet and this morning i did my first real aviating there was a bit of wind blowing so the monitor mr moses only let a lieutenant in me go up as we had gone better than the others last night first it was a bit rainy and always bumpy as the deuce puffs in pockets which required the entire corrective force of the wing warp and rudder to overcome. My last sortie was decidedly active. The wind had developed into a bit of a breeze, which is to a

bellerro, like a rough sea to a rowboat. Two or three times I got a puff that tipped the machine way over, put the controls over as far as I could and waited. Seemed a minute before she straightened. The trouble was that the machine was climbing and therefore not going very fast. If I had be kayed, it would have corrected quicker. I had no trouble at all in making the landing. Hopping out of the machine, I saw the head monitor rushing over to Mr. Moses on the double, shouting voluably in French and berating him severely. I gathered that he had been watching my maneuvers, expecting something to fall every instant, and that he strenuously objected to Moses, letting me go up, work stopped there for the morning, and it was very fully explained to me what the trouble was. If I have some sort he's

there tonight, I go to Tour de Pist, Flyingfield in the morning. I may be on Newport in two weeks. I'm now beginning to see the advantages of the Bellerot training. There is a great deal of preliminary work on or near the ground. In all other aviation training, such as at Newport News, 90% of the work is in making landings, in pecking down, redressing at the proper moment and making gradual connections with the earth. I haven't made a really bad landing, yet, and the reason is that I have been in a machine so much on and near the ground, that I have sort of developed a sense or feel of it, and almost automatically redress accordingly, and settle easily. Also, I can tell pretty closely what is flying speed because of the work on the rollers.

It's the same way with all the other students, only I know it now from my own experience. And this morning I began to realize that my hundred minutes at Newport News was invaluable. I not only found out some of the tricks of a master hand, Carlstrom, but also developed a bit of confidence in the air, an air sense, without which I would have gotten into trouble this morning. My bumpy rod this morning is absolutely invaluable. I'll probably never have so much trouble in the air again, because a fast machine, or even a Beilero, with a good motor, would hardly have noticed these puffs. It was a bit risky, I guess, or the head monitor would not have been worried, but now that it's over, I know a lot more. four dear blank you've certainly developed into a wonderful correspondent honest to goodness a letter you started my way about a month ago is quite the most satisfactory and amusing thing i've received since i've been over here based on practically no material it was alive with interest every line there's nothing like a finishing school education if i thought you could knit i would immediately appoint you as my maraine godmother for it's quite possible for one person to have my 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 Marine is to write letters. You started that in good style, and to knit wool scarves, which the devoted soldier hands to a French peasant woman to unravel and make a pair of socks out of. Many aleboys have wandered in upon us of late, Alan Winslow, Wally Winter, George Mosley, 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 had 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, blank, blank. 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 can never tell i may come home on permission in the 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 test for a military aviator. I sort of had 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 were any superfluous iskes or ovages in this, you will understand why. The Russians are great flyers. In fact, they know so much about it that they never listened 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 Bellerot. 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

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 being quite perpendicular, not at all com ill-fall, in a blehrio. Why something did not break has been the wonder of the bleherio 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 Bayloral School was like was 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 one 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 five hundred feet and a half turn in about two seconds, I think, all were the motor going to beat the cars. I must have been traveling at many hundreds of miles an hour. Once again, nothing broke, but it was no fault of mine that it didn't. Sincerely, Stuart. 5. August 25, 1917. I started from my altitude test three days ago.

The requirement is one hour above 2,000 meters. I got to 1,950 meters, and one cylinder refused to fire, so I was forced to come down. The next morning I tried again, got to 900 meters, and the magneto ceased to function, thereby stopping all progress. I glided toward home, but didn't have quite the height to make the piece, so had to land in a nearby field, just dodging a potato patch. A flock of curate 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 2,014 minutes and to 3,500 meters, 11,500 feet in 40 minutes. I went up through some light clouds, and when I got to 3,500 to the top of my recording barrio-graph, 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, 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 meters and 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 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 surface but the music by a tenor and a cello was excellent while the cortege was going down the hill to the cemetery a newport circled overhead very low for half an hour or more and dropped a reef was a very impressive ceremony i expect to start on triangle and petit voyage in a few days when they were done i will be brevet at flyer in the french army then comes perfessione work in acrobassi

so it'll be quite a while yet for me six august thirty first nineteen seventeen dear blank here it is almost september and i am still a dog gone elevée pilot verily every time i think of how the time passes along without results i go wild my complaint is caused by the west wind which is blown about twenty-five days during the month of august and seems likely to continue well on into september the only variety is an occasional storm for the past two weeks i have been waiting to start my voyages two trips to a town forty miles away and back and two other triangular trips about one hundred and eighty miles long each when they are done one becomes a pilot elev and there's a great if subtle difference when the words are reversed an eleve pilot is the scum of the earth look down on by mechanics pilots monitors and everyone else a pilot elevy can wear wings on his collar and is as good as anyone else he is permitted to fly in rough weather to take chances and is not in so much danger of getting radiated if he gets in trouble the proper thing to do on a triangle or petit voyage is to have something busts directly over a nice chateau make a skilful landing on the front lawn under the eyes of the admiring household and then be an enforced guest for a few days until one is rescued by a truck and mechanics one has to be very careful where the pond de motore catches him lest he have to make his landing in a lake or on a forest which is apt to be a bit awkward one chap an american has been a man out on a triangle for two weeks, staying at some country place, and there are four others at another

school near a big town waiting for weather to return. Reports give us to believe that they are having a much better time there than we are here. Between here and the point for the Petit Voyage, a little bit off the route, is the big future American aviation camp and also an artillery camp. There are quite a bunch of fellows there, Quentin Roosevelt, Cord Meyer, etc., I think. Every American that has left on his voyages in the last month, has stopped there against all orders, and been bowled out by the monitor. One has to keep a recording barometer or altimeter machine, a barograph, during the voyages, which indicates all stops. One chap came back home the other day with a barometer record showing beyond the shadow of a doubt that he had made a stop of

about 15 minutes en route. The monitor saw it and said, All you Americans stop off there. I don't like it. Then the chap tried to explain how he had a pond and come down in a field out in the country somewhere, fix the motor, and come on home. He almost got away with it, but the monitor happened to snuck around a bit and noticed on the tail very clearly written a good Anglo-Saxon name, the name of the town and the date, quite indisputable evidence. I fully expect to have a pond there myself before long. By the way, to declare a short pause in my chronicle of aviation, how about all those letters that are to follow? If you try to tell me how good you are to your Belgian soldier, I refuse to believe a word until you treat me in the same way.

And I also refuse to accept anyone as a Marine. Isn't that what you call these fairy godmother persons one is supposed to correspond with during the war and marry afterward? How inconsiderate some of them are, to take three or four soldiers, just assuming that not more than that, not more than one will survive. However, they may be wise to have more than one iron in the fire, but my parenthesis grows apace. I say I refuse a marein until she approves her ability. But let me see again. Does said moraine have to be a complete stranger? It seems to me that is customary, and also usually they are of different nationalities. All of the foregoing weak line will be interpreted as a mere plea for that other letter. I've never made this absence makes the heart grow fonder stuff at all.

Even blank has given me up. I remained to her only another of the forgotten. Conquest of the dead past. This odd person, Bassett, wandered in all dressed up like a patch of blue sky, and I just had to let you know he was here. With absolute confidence in each other's integrity, we put our loving messages side by side. By the way, he is a good scout, don't you think? I have gotten to like him immensely since he has been here. I never had a better time in my life than one evening in Paris with Chet. However, quiet the party, he is the life of it. It must be that I take my weekly shave in cold, cold water with a dull, dull razor, oh, happy thought, tell the father and brothers hello from me, also tell Blank to drop me a line of what he's doing and

when he's coming over. Stuart. 7. September 1st, 1917. The Wild Man and the Newport was out again this morning, giving someone a joy ride. There is a long straight stretch of road in front of our piece, and he came down that several times, a nasty, puffy wind blowing, which bothered him not at all, flying only two or three feet off the ground.

In front of the piste is a telephone wire crossing the road. He came along the road, 100 miles an hour, until he was a lot. almost on top of the wire and jumped up just in time to clear it by a few feet. Really beautiful work. He goes all over the surrounding country flying low, hopping over trees and houses, sometimes turning up sideways to slip between two trees a bit too close together to fly through, sometimes dragging a wing through the space between a couple of hangars and doing vertical verages just in front of them. It doesn't seem possible that any man can be so much a part of his machine can do it so consistently accurate that he never misses. For this chap, Lumiere, has never had a match.

A chap named Lofgren started off on one of his Brevet voyages a few days before I got ready for Brevet. He got quite a ways along, ran into a storm, went above it, got caught in a cloud, kept on for quite a long way being drifted by a strong wind, then came down through the clouds and found that they were only 400 feet above the ground. After a while he found a place to land and came down safely. He went to a farmhouse, got his machine guarded and tied down. In the meantime, word had spread over the countryside that an aviator had come down there, and the entire population came out to look him over. A grand equipage drove up with a count who lived in a nearby chateau. He insisted that had he come to the chateau and accept their hospitality. There the fortunate Edd stayed five

days. The Countess talked English, and also some house-guests. He hadn't brought a trunk, so borrowed razor, et cetera, from the Count, went down to see the machine every day in the baronial barosch. Whenever he went to the little town in the vicinity, all the kids followed him around the streets, and when at last he left, he was presented with a multiple of bouquets and had to kiss each and every donor. He brought back pictures of the chateau, a delightful-looking old place, and numerous addresses. Eight. At last the two weeks of wind and rain has ceased, and now it is perfect weather, a bit of a breeze and

lots of sun for the last two days. Yesterday morning there weren't enough machines to go around, so I did not work. Making the eighth consecutive day I hadn't stepped in a machine. Last evening, I at last, and with much rejoicing, started out on my maiden voyage to another school about sixty kilometers away. 37.5 miles. It was delightfully easy, nothing to do but climb two or three thousand feet and just sit there and watch the country unfold, comparing the map-like surface of the earth spread out below with a map in the machine. In good weather, it is very easy to follow. Spot roads, towns, woods, rivers, and bridges.

Railroad tracks get lost at high altitudes and are harder to find anyway. One has to keep an eye open for a place to land within gliding distance. and case of a pond always, but the country is so flat and so much cultivated around here that it is absurdly simple. I endeavored always to keep some pleasant-looking house or chateau in range in case of trouble, for the French are proverbially hospitable to aviators in Pond, lying to descending. Coming back yesterday evening, the sun was pretty low, and the air absolutely calm, nothing but the drone of the motor and the wind.

The only movements necessary, and occasional slight pressure on the joystick to one side or the other to keep the proper direction. I came very nearly going to sleep. It was so peaceful up there. Several times closed my eyes and swayed a bit. As a matter of fact, one is perfectly safe at that altitude, anything over a thousand feet, because the machine, at least this particular type, won't get into any position from which one cannot get it out within 200 meters at most. But nevertheless, I hadn't tried any impromptu falls as yet. this morning i repeated the same identical performance because for some reason we have to do two petite voyages and had much the same kind of a time as yesterday on the way home one cylinder quit its job and threw oil instead covering me from head to foot and clouding up my goggles so i had to wipe them off about every minute when i got back the mechanics decided that the motor had died of old age and would have to be repaired so i am again without a machine

having watched a beautiful afternoon pass by from the barracks when without my luck i'd be working but with a machine and weather i can be finished to-morrow two triangles to do about two hundred kilometers a hundred and twenty-five miles each and i can do one in the morning and the other in the evening and then i'm breveted perhaps by day after to-morrow i'll start proficione on newport i hope so nine since my last to father i have had some very interesting times first i finished my brevet with very little excitement made all my voyages and only got lost a little bit once then i saw two machines on the ground in a field made a rather dramatic spiral and steeply banked descent amidst a crowd of villagers and got away with it then found the machines belonged to two monitors who were bringing them from paris and had effected a pondish of a being asked what i was doing i fortunately found a spark plug on the burn and got that repaired the rest of it was very easy a bit of flying in the rain which stings the face a bit but is not bad otherwise since i've been on the newport there are three sizes of machines on which one is trained starting with a larger double command and going to the smallest at pow we get another even smaller about as big as half a minute four times i went out with a ride bad weather crowded and busted machines. The same old story. Then last night I had my first rides where the monitor is rather oldish,

crabbed and new at his job, a brand new aviator. As you know, when an airplane takes a turn, it does not remain horizontal but banks up. Comsa, if you can interpret that illustration, it shows signs of remarkable imaginative power. Allures, one banks to take a turn and uses the rudder only a very little because the machine turns along when banked. There is a sort of falling out feeling the first few times until one becomes a part of the machine. To get back to the story,

this monitor does not like to bank his machine and sort of sidels around the corners, keeping it quite flat and almost slipping out to the outside of the turn. I've done many full things in a machine and made many mistakes, but never have I been so scared in anything in my life as when riding with this monitor. A monitor is supposed to let the pupil drive as much as he is able, but this bird never lets me make a move, and when we got through told me I was too brutal.

I was never madder in my life and cursed nice American cuss words all the way home. There's a 15-kil ride and a seatless tractor back to camp to improve a bad humor. Well, this morning I saw some more rides impending and didn't like it, so asked the chef de Piste to put me with another monitor. He had to know why, and I registered my kick, which practically said that the first monitor didn't know his business and couldn't drive, that I was scared to ride with him. The chef was a bit sarcastic and told me to take two rides with another monitor to show how I could make a verage. I did it the way I've been accustomed to, making a fairly short turn. When we got down, the monitor said, a patent, American, stunning, or something like that to the chef. the chef had meanwhile communicated my complaint to the first monitor and he was the maddest man i ever saw demanded what c de blois indicating me wanted said the verages i had just made were dangerously banked the monitor i was with didn't mind though

then all three started arguing at once at me and i spelled all the french i knew about that time i thought of what you had just told me in a letter about trusting in latin which advice and remarks i have come to agree with very much my admiration for the french has waxed less daily and here i realized that i had very successfully made a fool out of the man who was supposed to be my teacher and he fully resented it then of all things the lieutenant without further remarks said i was to continue with my first monitor my heart sank into my feet i had visions of staying in that class without rides or with only rides and fights for months i rode no more this morning and what was my delight to find that this evening my evening my bewhiskered pal had left on permission. I got another monitor, a fine one who put his hands on the side of the machine, and let me do everything with a bit of assistance on the landing, which is different from what I've been doing on the quadron. Seven rides and a finish, the 23-meter tomorrow morning. It wasn't very good, but got by... Ten. Things for me are going all right, have made progress on the Newport since last I wrote,

and will fly alone soon. As regards the U.S. Army, things are at a standstill until I get to Paris, which will be a week or so. I hope to go to the front in a French Esquadrille and in an American uniform. Some say it can be done, some that it cannot. It sounds so sensible that I am afraid there must be some regulation against it. 11. September 27, 1917. Since last I wrote a regular letter, considerable has taken place. First, I am now at Powell, having finished up Avord, have sent postcards to father right along to keep track of movements. After Brevet was over, I did not take the customary permission of 48 hours, but went straight to work on Newport. DC, double command. One cannot learn a

great deal riding with an instructor, only about enough to keep from smashing and landing, because one never knows when the instructor is messing with the controls, one is oneself. The There are five kinds of Newport's, differing mainly in size, the smaller being faster, more agile than the air, being adapted to eccentric flying. They are 28, 23, 18, 15, 13, the baby Newport. At a ward, I had about a week of DC on 28 and 23. The numbers refer to size of wings, with several days of no work, then some days on 23 alone, and finally on 18 alone.

The landings are a bit different from those of the machines I had been flying as they are faster, and the machines are quite nose-heavy. In the air, the nose-heavy feature makes them fly themselves, that is, according to the speed of the motor, the machine will rise and climb or pique and descend, with never a touch from the pilot. If the weather is not bad, the Newport will correct itself automatically from all displacements. But in landing, the nose-heavy feature causes a great many capotages, If the landing isn't done about right with a tail low, over she goes on her nose, or all the way onto her back, it is a very common occurrence and has become almost a joke. When a pupil capotees, everybody kids him. No one hurries over to see if he's hurt, not at all.

He climbs out from under, usually cursing, and in ten minutes the truck is out to salvage the wreck. It is astounding the way smashes are taken as a matter of course. Yesterday one chap and landing hit another machine. demolishing both but not touching either pilot, being worth some $15,000 or $25,000, but no one seemed to worry. It's very much a matter, of course. The monitor was a little peat because he will be short of machines for a few days, but that was all. I've seen as many as ten machines flatter on their backs or with tails high in the air on one field at the same time. For myself, I haven't capoteed or busted any wood since the Bleriotes, but I've seen. I'm knocking on the wooden table now. On several occasions it has been only luck that saved me,

as I've made many rotten landings. Well, to get back to the diary, after finishing at Avord, I waited around for two days to get papers fixed up, requested, and obtained permission, and then decided not to use it, and left straight for Powell, after fond farewells to the friends I've been with for three and a half months. Looking back, I didn't have such a bad time at a ward, after all, though I did get terribly tired of the living conditions. My trip to Powell, I put down to experience. I discovered one schedule not to travel by in future. Leaving avoid at 2.15, I got to Bois at 245 and found that the train left at 729. Fortunately, there was another chap from the school on the train, Arthur Blumenthal,

an old Princeton football star, whom I have gotten to know quite well, so we managed to waste the afternoon together. At 729, I started another half-hour's journey, at the end of which the timetable said that the train for Bordeaux left at 10.30. This is all p.m. At this town, there were some American engineers, so I embraced the fellow countrymen in a strange land, finished up a not-very-gay evening by attending the movies, a most odd institution. Clouds of tobacco smoke obscured the screen, and most of the action was around the bar at one side of the hall. Nobody was drunk, but nearly everyone was drinking and very gay. This was merely Saturday night in a small town of the provinces, not in gay Paris. At 10.15 I got in a first-class compartment and tried to find a

comfortable position in which to sleep. At 2.15 a.m., I'd must up my clothes considerably, lost my temper, and not slept to wink. Then we had to change again. The rest of the morning, I sat opposite an American officer, a queer old foge, and we tried to kid each other into thinking we were sleeping, with no success, arrived at Bordeaux at 7 a.m., and found that the train for Powell left immediately, so I missed out on breakfast, too. Oh, it was a hectic trip. My idea of a very unpleasant occupation is that of a traveling salesman in France. And of Section 2. Section 3 of above the French lines by Stuart Walcott. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Stuart Walcott's letters.

12. October 22, 1917. Ah, blank. Once more, I take my pen in hand to lay at your feet the burdens of an overwrought. How is that word spelled? Mind, said burdens being caused by a most unpleasant captain. Just because I was in Paris for a day and a half without permission, He handed me eight days of jail, and today, for nothing at all, he held me out in front of the entire division, and got quite angered when I told him in extremely broken French that I hadn't understood a word. But as the jail doesn't mean anything, and doesn't have to be served, I'm not worrying very much. The afternoon is misty, and there isn't a chance of flying, so it takes particular care that

nobody leave the peace, though there is absolutely nothing to do there, no chance to get warm or comfortable, which at least gives me a perfect alibi for poor penmanship, as I am sitting in a machine and quite uncomfortable. Thoughtless creature, so much like the rest of your sex, why did you not tell me where Albert was to be over here, or what he was going to do, or what service he was in, or at least that he was in France? I cleverly deduced the letter from your letter, but did not know where to find him. When I got your letter, I was at Pau, not far from Bordeaux. Didn't I write you or postal card you from there? Afterward, at Paris, I talked to a few very dressed-up ensigns with wings on them somewhere. Walker is the only name I remember, and they told me that

Blank was near Bordeaux, and in the same group with themselves, so if, etc., I might have gone to see the big boy. Yesterday I went to see Billy and another classmate in an artillery camp the other side of Paris. They're officers of the USA, and live as such, which incites in me much envy is I'm still a mere corporal of France and treat it with no more than my due, not quite as much as I sometimes think. That was the expedition that brought the jail. Lots and lots of people are getting over here now. I've seen High Liger Church and Kelly Craig, who are about to become aviators somewhere. Porter guest just became brevetant, that is, a licensed pilot, and was considerably seen in Paris shortly after. No end of college friends are over here, and even in a case.

American girl is seen in Paris. No friends as yet. Your letter, I asked at Morgan Harry's about Miss Blank and found that she is at the front in a hospital, so I can't very well find her in Paris. I'm sorry as I would very much have liked to. What one might call permanent people are very nice to know in Paris. I don't know anything about the front yet, but if I'm near Miss Blank's hospital, we'll try to get acquainted. What you said about Blank and is going, I can pretty well appreciate. there isn't a thing in the world to worry us, unmarried and very independent young men over here. If something happens to us, it will bother you all back home a great deal more than us.

It's very, very true that women have the heaviest and worst part of war. I had to write a letter the other day to the mother of a pal over here who shot himself went out of his head. A fine pilot and an exceptionally charming fellow. How I pity his poor mother! It's almost unbelievable the number of women. and one season black here in France. Thank God it can never become that bad at home,

for the war will never get so close to us as it has to the French. I haven't the inspiration to compose an imaginative aeronautic thriller today about the experiences of a boy aviator, since last writing have finished Newport and a ward, went to POW and there did acrobassi, came here to Plessus Belleville and started Spod, now await Simon to an Esquadrille, which ought to come within a week.

Haven't broken any wood since Belarus days, but have been a bit more rational and done about average good work. The preliminary training is over. Combat training doesn't amount to anything till we get to the front. I'll be in a mono place machine surely. So in my next, you can expect to hear

my details of combating the bullshit at high altitude. I'm beginning to hear that it's nothing but a lot of routine work. Few combats and pretty soon a frightful bore. I refuse to believe it, and hang on to romance for all I'm worth. Give my regards to a whole lot of people, and tell them I haven't quite given up a hope of a letter, though almost. My friends as a group are not very strong on letter-writing. There are only a very few shiny exceptions like yourself, and verily they do make of me the heart glad.

But enough of this. Tis bootless, so I sign myself, thine as of your, steward. 13. Escadrille Spa 84. Sector Postal 181. Par ACM. Paris. November 1, 1917. Well, I'm here, in sight of the front at last. To date I haven't been out there yet and won't for a few days more, as they take lots of care of new pilots and don't feed them to the bush right away. Probably day after tomorrow the lieutenant-in-command will take me out to show me around the lines, and after that I'll take my place in patrols with the others. The work is exclusively patrolling, establishing as or a barrage against German machines and preventing as far as possible any incursions of the

French lines. As the big attack is over, there is comparatively little activity. Sometimes one goes for a whole patrol without being fired on, and without seeing an enemy machine anywhere near the line. lines during the three days i've been here the group has accounted for several bouches without any losses whatever young bridgemen of the lafayette esqadrille had a bullet through his fuselage just in front of his chest but suffered no damage except from fright there are several squadrilles in the group a group de combat it is called all have spots which make it very nice the lafayette one twenty four is of our group and have adjoining barracks which makes it very nice, I seem to repeat, for us lone Americans in French Esquadrilles, for we drop in there far too often, and the first few nights I used the bed of the famous Bill Thaw's roommate, away on permission. Did I write you that one morning he brought in whiskey to wake me up, and my eye no sooner open than my head was buried under the covers?

Whiskey is a pet, a very large lion cub, which is unfortunately outgrown its utility as a pet, and was sent yesterday with its running mate soda to the zoo at Paris to be a regular lion. They are a very odd crowd, the members of the Lafayette Esquadryl, a few very nice ones and a bunch of rather roughnecks. Their conversation is an eye-opener for a new arrival, mostly about Paris, permissions and the Rue de Bray, but occasionally about work, and that is interesting. Nonschalant doesn't express it. When Bridgie got shot up as a mentioned above, they all kidded the life out of him, and when he got the Croy de Gere, they had him almost in tears, just because he's the kiddable kind. But in talking about the work, for instance,

Jim Hall, I peaked on him with full motor and got so darn close to him that when I wanted to open a fire, I was so scared of running into him that I had to yank out of the way, and so never fired a single shot. Or Loughbury just mentions in passing that he got another bosh this morning, but those Blank Observer people won't give him credit for it. He is 14 official now, and probably twice as many more, never allowed him. Some days ago, during the attack, he had seven fights in one day, brought down six of them and got credit for one, which must be discouraging. 14. November 5, 1917.

Well, Blank, here I find myself writing to you without waiting for the usual two or three months to elapse. You realize that it was over five and a half months ago that I left my native land. Doesn't seem near so long to me. Just at present I have about 13 hours a day to write. Read the Washington Star and the New York Times. Eat an occasional meal. We only get two over here. Worse luck.

Build fires in the stove and stroll for exercise. The rest of the time is devoted to sleep. A terribly hard life, that of an aviator on the western front. No appels, meaning roll calls. discipline or inspections. Only if there should happen to be a good day, one might be wanted to fly a bit. So far, I have only been out here a week. We have had perfectly ideal aviators weather. Nice, low misty clouds about three hundred or four hundred feet up, which quite prevent aerial activity, and yet one is not bothered by mud or depressed by rain. In the morning, one awakes,

pokes his hat out the window, says, what low, more luck, a nice light brou-lar. A nice light brou-lar. and he closes the window for a few hours more of sleep. Really, I've done more resting the past week than most people do in a lifetime. To get statistical, I finished up at Powell from where I sent you a letter. Nessipa? A month ago, and then spent two very unpleasant weeks at Dulcisse-Belville near Paris, at the big depot for the front, waiting to be sent to an escuadry, with nothing to do but a little desultory flying,

nurse the system, food, weather, lodging, discipline, etc. Eventually my turn came, and with another American, I was dispatched to Esquadryl, S-P-A-84, where we arrived after the usual delay passing through Paris. That's one nice thing about the country. All roads lead to Paris. Sent from one place to another, it is a safe wager that one goes via Paris and always takes 48 hours there and gets permission for it if you can. There are a few Frenchmen there still, but on the streets one sees almost entirely American, British, or British colonial officers, occasionally a French aviator, and of course clouds of sweet and innocent young things. Yes, nearly all of my classmates are over here and get to Paris every once in a while, so all I have to do is to sit at the Café de Les Pais,

and if I wait long enough, someone I know will surely come along. Well, to get back on the track, we eventually found ourselves members of L'Edit Squadrille Spa 84, one Esquadrille of a group de chasse, which means that we will have patrolling work to do mainly and not protection of observation or photo machines, which they tell me is fortunate. Also, we have good machines, the best there are, which might not have happened had we been sent to another type of squadrille. Purely good fortune. The much advertised Lafayette Squadrille, number one, 124 is a member of the same group, is located near us and does the same work, which makes it much pleasanter for lone Americans. We use their stove and tea of an afternoon quite freely

as our quarters are new and not fixed up. But say, when we do get going, everybody will be in to see us. We'll have a cozy, beautifully wallpaper room clustering about a stove. The men of 124 are a rather good crowd, not much different from any crowd of Americans, a bit rough, but most of it affected because they're away from home, very hospitable, rather daredevil, or hard-hearted, whichever you wish to call it, the way they talk about each other's narrow escapes, coming falls, the mistakes or misfortunes of departed brothers, and there have been several, and very mixed centering around Lieutenant Bilthaw of the French army, who impresses me as being very much a leader in an unusually fine type. There's one tough nut from a Middle Western

Siwash-like college, who was probably still ungraduate at 27, and a quiet, innocent-looking kid who seems to have just got out of prep school. Of course, the tough guy tears the little one. Then there are a couple of old legionnaires, rather superior and terribly tired of war, quite unenthusiastic, but I dare say congenial when one gets under their hide or fills it full of booze. In Jim Hall, the author chap, quiet, reserved, almost simple in his lack of affectation, and boyish in his enthusiasm. Gadhowie wants to get his bosh, and he almost thinks he did the other day, but it wasn't

verified. He followed him down from fifteen hundred to two hundred meters, shooting all the time and thinks he must have brought him down. Did I mention above that I am at present in the status practically of a non-flying member? On arriving at the front, one is not rushed straight away to the cannon's mouth, but rather allowed to get acclimated at first, to have a few preliminary voyages to look around, etc. During my week here there has been little flying, and I haven't even seen the front, only heard the guns occasionally. Of my three flights, two were just short tours de champs, but the other, never in my wildest blerio days, did I do a wilder one. Coming from Powell, where I had tried some stunts, I thought I was a bit of an acrobat, second only to Navarre.

di Nemeer and a few others. So arriving at a safe height, I started to go through the repertoire. First came a loop, which got around to the vertical point, a quarter turn, and then slipped, ending in a vertical corkscrew or climbing barrel turn, or whatever you want to call it, then losing momentum and just naturally tumbling. I didn't know what was going on, only that it wasn't right. They told me afterward. After that came the Vervicement and vertical turns, etc. and not a thing came out. Lost, I got lost 30 times and had to hunt all around to see where I was. Nothing went right, and I kept getting matter and matter and poorer and poorer. They were all laughing

down below and wondering what was going on up there. Eventually the party ended. One of the old pilots told me that that one flight equaled about 30 hours over the lines, and the commander advised against a repetition of the performance. And so I went and laid down. Two hours later I began to feel that perhaps I could stand on my feet again. Did you ever have Mal de Mer? So now I really ought to begin to learn something, having acquired the all-essential first knowledge of ignorance, which all good students should have, and in the meantime, perhaps I shall go in combat the Wiley Hun. Said Wiley Hun need not worry about my bothering him if he does not keep fooling around under my nose, till I'm ashamed not to go after him. I'm not bloodthirsty a bit, especially till I learn to fly, and the lack of combats isn't going to

keep me awake nights for a while yet. But the bunk mate seems to have gone to bed, and it's almost ten, a most unprecedented hour for me to be up, so the end approaches. Kind remembrance is, as usual, use your discretion, and don't forget that long tale of Washington social tidbits you spoke of. Gossip, if you prefer. As ever, Stuart. next day. Adenda. Your letter on just arriving home has been with me some time and truly brought joy to my heart in this desolate land. The desolate seems to fit in, though not applying to the land in question at all. Chester Snow is aviating under the auspices of the U.S. government. I last heard from him in a postal written on the last stop of the last triangle of his brevet, so he should be through training before

much longer. The other Chester, Bassett, is still at Avord, so I cannot deliver your note to him. Your other question referred to the army I'm in, and is easily answered by saying that the USA has as yet done nothing but talk about taking us over. Us now refers to upward of 200 Americans, I think, either in French esquadrilles or well-advented in the French schools. Constantly all summer we have been going to be transferred in two weeks. Another quiet, non-flying, slightly rainy day has passed. This isn't perhaps the most ideal spot in the world for a winter resort, from the point of view of comforts,

but considering the ease of conscience because one is not in the position to be called embosque, it is really not half bad. It's starting to rain again rather harder. I wonder if the roof will keep out water. Yours, etc. B.S.W. fifteen november tenth nineteen seventeen evening you know november in france i've been here almost two weeks now and am still allah entranement that is i haven't started in to do any regular work yet only five times have i been able to fly in two weeks but i've got my own machine and mechanic everything is in order and i've been assigned to a patrol the last two mornings when it rained to-morrow again at eight fifty with four others patrol for one hour and fifty minutes at about fifteen thousand feet back and forth over our sector sometimes over our own lines sometimes in balshie

i'm getting very impatient to get started in what few flights i've had i've been working on acrobacy a bit and am gradually learning a few simple things twice i stayed up a little too long and had to lie down a few hours afterward almost seasick i like spa eighty four very much indeed the frenchmen there are much more regular fellows than most of those i've been with in the schools vertheimer a sergeant is the sort of informal and unadmitted chief of the frenchman there are much more regular fellows than most of those i've been with in the schools vertheimer the sergeant is a sort of informal and unadmitted chief of the sous officiers it is that he speaks english and has helped us a lot in getting started etc very much of a gentleman he is and understands a bit anglo-saxon customs and exotricities always gay and an defatigable worker we have all been arranging the one big room of our barracks dining-room reading-room and probably eventually american bar the walls are covered with green cloth green paper of two different shades and neither quite the same as the cloth red cloth on top as a sort of freeze and red paper the ceiling is done in white cloth to keep in heat and light in the room a monumental task it has been specially as materials are hard to get and expensive vertem as vertimer is called and de bort have done most of the work de bort is also chef de p p pote which means housekeeper and a very efficient man. For four francs per day we are fed amazingly well, especially when one realizes that we are near the front in a country which has had three years of war.

De Boat hasn't the pleasantest manner in the world at times, but usually is very agreeable, willing to tell me things about flying or the Esquadrille, always ready to work, and a dependable man in the air. And Verber, who rooms with Vertim, he speaks a little English, has a great deal of trouble understanding it, but is picking up. Where's a monocle all the time, because he's got a bum eye, carries a stick and has an extremely eccentric appearance, but with all is very agreeable and a very valuable man. He has the habit of taking long trips,

all alone far into Germany just to see what is going on. Pino is the name of the little roly-poly chap everyone calls Boulbool, who used to be a mechanic, and now is a very good merry pilot. He has a great pension. toward Penard, is violently, but not all objectionably non-aristocratic, is forever laughing or kidding someone, walks on his hands to amuse people, and is the delight of all the meccanos. De Moldre is a very quiet sort of schoolboy type, who has been a pilot of biplanes and reconnaissance machines for a long time. He came to the squadro recently with a record of two

boches as a pilot of a biplane, that is his machine-gun man, did the ship. shooting, and they both get credit, and a few days ago brought down a German in flames. His first as Pilote de Chasse. There are two others away on permission, whom I don't know yet. Sixteen. Somewhere in France. November 13, 1917. Dear father, Campbell was in the Lafayette Esquadrille, and they are a member of the same group as Spa Eighty-four, so I've asked them about him. He was on a patrol with another chap, they attacked some boches, and when it was over the other chap was alone. Campbell was brought down

in German territory and so reported missing. I believe that the chap he was with has seen and talked to Campbell's father or some close relatives since. Another chap named Bolki was brought down in similar circumstances about the first of September. Ten days ago, word was received from the American embassy that he had communicated with them, a prisoner in Germany. There are many similar cases where men brought down with crippled machines or wounded, escaped destruction by a miracle. The only sure thing is when a machine goes down in flames or is seen to lose a wing or two. For instance, there are two officers in the group who are in the best of health and daily working. Several months ago they were on patrol together, collided in the air.

One cut the tail rigging completely off the other and they separated, one without a tail and the other with various parts in a tail mixed among the cables and struts of one side of his machine. They both landed in France, one on his wheels followed by a caputage or somersault turnover, the other quite completely upside down. Then a term in the hospital, and back they are again. Kenneth Marr, an American, had the commands of both his tail controls cut in a combat, the rudder and elevator, leaving him nothing but the Elioran, the lateral balance control and the motor.

he landed with only a skinned nose for casualties and got a decoration for it. Another chap in an attack on captive balloons, drachshund, dove for something like 10,000 feet vertically and with full motor on, thereby gaining considerable speed, as you can imagine. He came right on top of the balloon, shot and keep from hitting it, yanked as roughly as he could, flattening out his dive in the merest fraction of a second. Imagine the strain on the machine. When he got home, all the wires had several inches sag in them.

The metal connections of the cables in the struts and wood of the wings had bit into the wood, enough to give the sag. Machines are built to stand immense pressure on the underside of the wings. In some aerobatic maneuvers I was trying the other day, I made mistakes and caused the machine to stall and then fall in such a way that the full weight was supported by the upper surface, by the wires which in most machines are supposed merely to support the weight of the wings when the machine is on the ground. Yes, the spot is a well-built machine. The nearest thing to perfection in point of strength, speed, and climbing power I've seen yet.

Of course, it's heavy, and that's why they put 150 to 230 horsepower in them. The other school, that of a light machine with a light motor, depending for its success on lack of weight rather than excess of power, may supplant the heavier machine in time. I can't tell. So as anyone who knows has said right along, there is a long way to go in the development of the J.N, or even the little triplane, before American-built planes get to the front. Of the bombing game, I don't know anything at all. Yesterday there was a review here in honor of Guidenamer, and decorations for the pilots of a group who had won them. Three Americans received the Croyte-Gaire, members of the Lafayette Squadrille, Loughbury, the American ace, carried the American

flag presented to the squadrille by Mrs. McAdoo and the employees of the Treasury Department, besides the two aviation emblems of France. He was called to receive his decoration, for having in the course of one day held seven combats, descend at one German plane and flames, and force five others to land behind their lines, which means that he is officially credit with one, his 13th, and that the other five they'll probably brought down. Do not count for him, because there were not the necessary witnesses required by the French regulation. Being the bearer of the flag, he was a very worried man to know what to do with a flag when he should go up to get his medal till one of the fellows in 124, the Lafayette, came to his rescue. For a military review, it was

decidedly amusing. Aviators are not very military. The chief of one of the squadrilles was commissioned to command the mechanics who were playing soldiers with rifles and steel helmets for the occasion. he is a bit of a clown and amused the entire gathering, kidding with the officers. The pilots of each of the five squadrilles were in more or less formation, most of them with hands in their pockets for it was chilly, and presenting a mixture of uniforms unparalleled in its heterogeneity. Every branch of the service represented and endless personal ideas and dress, because of the occasion repose has been granted to the entire group for the afternoon,

and another group taking over our patrols, so that after the review everyone had the afternoon to waste. A sunny day, which is quite unusual this month. Within a half hour, every machine that was in working order was in the air, forming into groups and then off for the lines, just looking for trouble. A voluntary patrol, they call it, which opened my eyes a bit to the spirit in the French service

after three years of war. Word from Paris that those Americans in the French service who have demanded the release to join the USA have obtained that release, which probably means that all we wait for now is the commissions. This afternoon I took another trip with one of the old pilots to look over the sector. We stayed over France and didn't get into trouble, although there were a lot of boches around. Hope to really get started soon. An amusing one this morning, two pilots from the group were on patrol and attacked a single German about two kilometers behind the German lines. They completely outmaneuvered him.

He got cold feet and started for the French lines, giving himself up. The funniest part about it is that the machine gun of one of the attackers was jammed and he couldn't possibly have hurt the Bosch. Just had the nerve to stay and throw a bluff. They came back to camp just before dark this evening. One of them flying the German machine and the other guarding him in his spot. The machine is an albatross. biplane, finished in silver with big black crosses on the wings and tail. A really beautiful thing.

It flew around camp for several minutes before landing. It is the second machine that has been scared down since I've been out here. Seventeen. At the front, somewhere in France, November 17, 1917. At present, things are hopelessly slow on account of bad weather, so I have had a good deal of time to write and not to write of. I still am waiting for my baptism of active service, which is assigned for each day and held up on account of fog, low clouds, or rain. In the afternoon it usually lifts a little, not enough to fly over the lines, but sufficient to permit a little vol de entranement, a practice flight around the field. I've been taking every chance to learn to fly, practicing reversements, vertically banked turns, 90 degrees,

nose dives, etc. Two days ago we had a very interesting mimic combat in the air. The Bosch machine, which has been captured and a spot, both driven by very clever pilots, maneuvered for position during 15 or 20 minutes at a thousand feet or less, back and forth over the field, doing almost every possible thing in the air, changing direction with incredible rapidity, diving, climbing, wing slipping, upside down dives, everything under the sun. Two of them were at a again today in two spods, just maneuvering. What a lot there is to learn. When I got through acrobacy at Pau, I had the impression that that kind of stuff was relatively easy. Now I know different. Well, the present I am working on the system of try one thing at a time, get that fairly well, and then

commence another, and small doses, 10 or 15 minutes for an acrobatic flight, not more, because one can easily get dangerously sick in a very short time. Not that there is any particular peril in getting ill in the air, only it's beastly uncomfortable. 18. At the front, somewhere in France. November 30, 1917. The rumor at the Lafayette's quadrille this evening is that they have been at last transferred. Of course, they had similar rumors many times before. For myself, I'm becoming rather indifferent, very well satisfied here except for whether and getting what I came over here for. Father mentioned something about a monitor's job after I had experience at the front.

My present inclination is decidedly against the idea. There is no job in the world I like less to think of, and there are plenty of people who want to get comfortably settled in the rear. So let them, say I, and may they enjoy it. It is not a very pleasant job. As a retirement after a period of service at the front, it is another matter. Of all people I can think of, I have the smallest right to an embusque job at present. So here I hope to stay. Whether I fly with an American or French uniform, I don't care very much at the present moment.

I'd rather get a Bosch than any commission in the army, but one cannot always tell about the future. Perhaps after a few good scares I'll be ready to jump at a monitor's job. 19 At the front, December 1st, 1917 I tried to give you all some idea of the strength of a spot in a letter a while ago. At home people speak of a factor of safety, meaning the number of times stronger the machine is than is necessary for plane flying.

The spot is made so that a man can't bust it no matter what he does in the air. Dive as far and as fast as he can and stop as brutally as he can, it stands the racket. Of course, motors do stop, and if it happens over a mountain range, well, that's just hard luck. I've had a few patrols since last I wrote, one at a high height, 4,000 to 4,500 meters, considerably above the clouds which almost shut out the ground below, wonderfully beautiful sight, but beastly cold, and a couple when the clouds were low and solid. The patrol stays at just the height of the clouds, hiding in them, and slipping. me out again to look around. If it gets below, the enemy anti-aircraft guns, pepper it whenever

near the lines, and at a low altitude that is rather awkward, so the patrol shows itself as little as possible. It's lots of sport to try to keep up with the patrol. Be behind the chief of patrol, see them disappear, and then bump into a fog-bang, a low-hanging cloud, and not see a darn thing, then dive down out of the cloud, wondering whether the other guy's right beneath or not. shoot out of the cloud and see him maybe 500 yards away going at right angles, then bank up and turn around fast and give her the gear, full speed to catch up and so on. See a boche regulating artillery fire, start to maneuver and to range and zip,

he's out of sight into clouds, and the next you see he is beating at far back of his lines. Not very dangerous this weather, but lots of fun. 20. December 3, 1917. Dear Blank, thanks for the me. Merry, Merry Wish us for the gay X-Miss season, and I'll try to remember them when the day comes along. Sundays and holidays are not very much noticed here at the front, except that on Sunday the mechanics all get full of pinaard and song and devilment, the pinaard, meaning cheap red ink used by the French in place of drinking water, is of course responsible for the two latter. In the villages,

the entire male populations, likewise drinks. Much wine and everyone, man, woman, child, dog, and domestic animal, parades the streets, dressed up all like a picture book, applying mostly to women and children. Occasionally they crossed the sidewalk, but the middle of the street is the place to walk. One Sunday I went to church, the first time since last Easter, I think, to attend the mass given for the departed brethren of the isquadrille. The chapel is in a little town a few miles from our camp. Along the Middle Ages, or, anyway, a long time ago, there was a beautiful cathedral there. Now the town is insignificantly small. The front of the cathedral is standing almost in its entirety, and the walls for, a little way back, dwindling down into glorious ruins, and finally tumbled masses

of rock and stray pillars. Where the back wall once stood, there now runs a little brook. I almost called it bubbling, but it happens to be an unusually dead and not over-clean little stream. The chapel is a place, about as big as a minute, snuggling in beside the big front wall of the ancient cathedral. The service was meaningless to me. What wasn't Latin was French. I followed the fellow in front of me and didn't miss it once on the getting up and down. Fortunately, militaris don't have to kneel, I suppose because they appreciate the fact that most of them were breaches made by French tailors. But they fooled me once. What must have been the village, Bell, what a village. Passed a little buttoned bag affair and baby blue ribbon, and gathered up the shekels.

I dropped mine in, and horror, here comes the young sister with an identical bag, and asked for more, and I was unprepared and had to turn her down amidst my blushes. I thought she was working on the other side of the house, as we used to do at evening service, and to this day I don't know why they took up two collections, though it has been explained to me three times in French. Have had some very pleasant trips over the German border, present not 1914, have watched a few Archies, busting at a safe distance away, and seen some specks, which were Bosch Plains, but I'm not ready to write a book yet. Yesterday morning we had the first sortie at 645 daylight,

a solid bank of clouds over the camp here at 2,000 meters. The lines are parallel to a river and a few kilometers north. The edge of the cloud bank was over the river, sharp as if cut by a knife, and all Germany, cloudless. We slipped out from under it, and back on top just in time to see the sun get over the horizon, almost as far away as rims, which we just cannot see. The river and canal were just silver ribbons on a black cloth, stretching from miles due east. Under us, we could make out the ground on one side and the clouds on the other, and to the west the cloud bank continued to follow the lines, a gloriously beautiful panorama. The cloud bank stayed nearly the same two hours we were up. From a distance above or below, a cloud is just a big soft,

quiet cushion of cotton fluff, but near to it it is a seething, irregular, tossing, furious jumble of mist. We saw a few boches far from their lines. An hour after we were back, they said that Loftbury had just brought down another machine, his fifteenth in flames. He was using a new machine, and the gun was not properly regulated. Seven balls were in each blade of his propeller. Yet it held together and brought him home. I was down at the Lafayette hangers, talking to Bill Thaw, and here comes the mighty man in a hurry from reporting his flight. With fire in his eye he got to the old machine and off again for the lines. At noon he brought down another, which hasn't been officially homologé, but is nonetheless sure for that. Thaw brought down one this morning. They're doing well these men of the American Esquadrille. Still French, however, though shortly to be transferred, we hear. May your X must be a happy one, and the new year and those to follow bring you ever better fortune. than the last one. Stuart.

21. Shalom Sumar. December 8th, 1917. Dear Blank, I got the Sunday star a few days ago, and there was that same picture and, blank, staring me in the face. A very nice ride-up, I thought.

What a bunch of bigwigs they did gather together. We packed up bag and baggage yesterday and flew off to a new place, and here we are waiting for the baggage to catch up. I have grave fears that there may be you some fighting one of these days, and if so, I think it will be about time for me to get out of this war. Cheerio. Stuart.

22. Shalone Sumar December 8, 1917. Yesterday we were awakened at six and told that we were going to move out, bag and baggage at two. So now as new barracks were not ready, we came down here last night and had been seen the sights of the town since. It is full of Americans, ambulances, doctors, YMCA workers, everything but fighting men, which I trust will see before long. Stuart.

End of Section 3. Section 4 of Above the French Lines by Stuart Walcott. This Libre Vox recording is in the public domain. The final combat. On December 12, while on patrol, Stuart Walcott met a German biplane carrying two men. Three cable reports agree that he shot down and destroyed the machine about two and a half miles within the German lines. He then started back for the French lines and was overtaken by four

Albatross German planes. He was overcome and his machine went down in a nosedive within the German lines, being assumed that either he was shot or his machine disabled. It was still a hope that he might have escaped death. Inquiries were at once instituted through the American Red Cross and the International Red Cross, with the result that on January 7th, a cable came from the International Red Cross stating that it was reported in Germany that S. Walcott was brought down during the afternoon of December 12 near Saint-Soupley and that he was killed by the fall. End of Section 4, the Final Combat. Section 5 of Above the French Lines by Stuart Walcott. The Sleeper-Ovox recording is in the public domain.

Walcott, a biographical note written by his father. Benjamin Stuart Walcott was sturdy and self-reliant as a boy in very early developed strong personal initiative, good sense and courage. I find in my notebook under an entry of July 6, 1905, a few days before Stuart's ninth birthday, that with him and his brother, Sidney, I measured a section of over 10,000 feet in thickness of rock with dipped compass and rod in northern Montana. And that night we slept out on the continental divide after a sandwich apiece for supper. On July 16th, went up the Gordon Creek with Stewart and cut a few trees out of the trail. And on the next day, Stuart assisted me in collecting

fossils from the middle Cambrian rocks. In 1906, Stewart helped in gathering Cambrian fossils in central Montana, and in recognition of his effective work, one of the new species of shells was named after him, Micromitra, Patarina, Stuati. He also assisted in British Columbia in geological work during the summer of 1907, and in 1908, when 12 years old, he was placed with one packer in charge of a pack train operating in what is now the Glacier Park, Montana, and in southern British Columbia. On this trip one morning I heard faint rifle shots, and upon overtaking the pack train found Stewart shooting away with a 22-gauge rifle at a grizzly bear, which was some distance down the slope below the trail.

On reminding him of the danger, he said he wanted to drive the bear away to prevent a stampede of the animals. Both at home and in school his actions were largely influenced by determination first to know what was the right thing to do, and guide it by this habit, when it was. looked as though the United States would enter the European War, he decided that it was his duty to take part in it. When the Lusitania was sunk, he felt strongly that the United States should take a positive stand in favor of the freedom of the seas, that the rights of Americans should be protected,

even if it meant war, and he was ready to fight for it. In common with the majority of youth of America, he had the feeling that it was a patriotic duty and privileged to offer personal service to the nation. its ideals and motives were assailed by a foreign foe. He first offered his services to the Signal Corps and received a temporary assignment. Realizing that training as an expert aviator could be more quickly obtained in France than in this country, he went to France and enlisted in the French army with the expectation of being transferred later to the American forces.

This would have been done prior to his being shot down within the German lines on December 12th, had he not been awaiting action by the United States Aviation Service in France in examining and arranging for the transfer of the American aviators in the French Army to the service of the United States. Throughout his life, the dominating thought was to be a positive service wherever he might be placed. At the same time, he was thoroughly a boy and enjoyed a frolic and fun as much as any of his companions. He prepared for college at the Taft School, expecting to enter Yale and pass the examinations for that university before he was 16. Upon further consideration, he selected Princeton, largely because of the preceptorial method of training

and was a senior when he decided to enter the service of his country. Stuart was an unusually well-balanced boy in youth. His moral convictions were sound, definite, and expressed by action rather than words. Charles D. Walcott End of Section 5 End of Above the French Lines by Stuart Walcott