Dec. 3rd, 1917

Naval aviation here seems to be getting along very well now as we have several stations under way and some doing active work, but it seems to me they are not yet going at it in the right way. So far we of the Unit and a few older men are the only naval pilots trained in flying sent from the United States. The large number of men who have been sent over have had no previous training or practically none. Most of them are men who, on enlisting, were immediately shipped across regardless of their ability or adaptability for aviation. All the fliers here, except us few, have been trained here, first on land machines, then at several French water schools. These men, turned out as pilots ready for active service, have had very little time in the air and from my observation do not in any way seem to be the picked men that a country of our size and resources should send to the front.

The observers, for most of the water machines carry more than  p20 one man, have also gone through the French water observers' school. These men have had a very primary course in bombing and machine gun work. The mechanics, men picked from different positions of life, are not trained mechanics; some of them with perhaps a small knowledge of engines, have been sent through factories rapidly, listening to lectures mostly in French, a few translated, and they have had to pick up what they could in, at the most, three weeks. The rest are learning from these and from trying to take care of the machines at the station.

Now, to take the case of the pilots. Here, it is at the best a long and inefficient course because of the great scarcity of materials, oil, gas, training machines, etc. The pilots, except for a comparatively small number, will be used for patrolling and convoying. They do not need advanced training in different types of machines and with machine guns. They need merely plenty of flying in a large machine with practice in rough weather and rough landing. With everything at hand and plenty of materials these men could be quickly and much more easily and cheaply trained in the United States than here.

The observers for these large patrol machines in the same manner could be easily trained by a great deal of experience in machine gun work and especially bombing in the best large machines at home. As a patrolling machine does not necessarily have great speed, the observers would be able, on our machines, to have the same conditions in practice that they would have later when actively engaged. Thus the pilots and the observers could have plenty of practical training.

Now from this number of pilots and observers, those who showed themselves superior could be taken out of the school and placed in another small school or else sent to an army school where the pilots could take a long and careful course on fast machines and could take almost the same course in the school of fire and in acrobatics. The observers could also take a course in bombing and machine gun work on the faster, lighter land machines.

The mechanics should be men preferably taken from the class of mechanics, thoroughly drilled on aeroplane motors and if necessary sent through a factory over here if said station does not use our American motor.

When these men arrived here, the pilots for patrol could take perhaps a few hops at the school here in their future machine and then would be ready and fit for work. The bombers and  p21 mechanics would be ready and able to do their work immediately upon arriving.

The small number of pilots for the fast single seaters could take the short course at the army school here, and would soon be ready for duty. If necessary, the observers for the fighting planes could likewise attend for a short term the army school here.

Conditions here make a man's complete training in any one of the three divisions long, inefficient and practically impossible, while at home there is every facility to train any required number of men quickly, cheaply and efficiently.

Going down on the train from Paris, we were joined by one of the French student officers from Hourtin, named Louis Maravel, who was one of the best there. He got off at Marseilles, and asked us to visit him there, although he was going in a few days to Sanº Raphael for training. We did not go, however.

We went to the Hotel de la Plage at San Raphael and found Gates and Lieutenant Corry there. Also Dr. Sinton, a Navy doctor who was in attendance on the American detachment. We lived at the hotel. There were ten or fifteen American enlisted men living at the station which was •a mile from the hotel. We were enchanted by the beauty of the Riviera after our dismal experience at Hourtin, but our experience in flying was the same 'Pas de voler,'º etc. For the first ten days we were held back because there were too many French pilots and when our turn came, the dreaded mistral came up, which blew at times •seventy miles an hour, and stopped flying for twelve days.

When the weather did clear up, we were put through very quickly. Maravel, the French officer we had met, came down and went through more quickly than we did. We got to be great friends. While taking one of his tests he got into a tail-spin through using his rudder, which was merely a dangerous ornament and not for use (on the F. B. A.'s), and was killed. This was  p22 the first loss that had come near us and was very depressing. Al Sturtevant was flying at the time of his funeral, but I went. It was held in a cathedral built in the twelfth century, in Fréjus, an old Roman town a mile from San Raphael, and was very impressive. During the procession after the funeral, in which most of the officers from the station took part, a machine trailing a great French flag circled slowly overhead. I tried to express my feeling to Maravel's father and mother, but my French was not equal to the occasion.

We learned a great deal of French, living at the hotel with Frenchmen — not only of the language, but the customs of the people. M. Le Franc, an officer at the station, who spoke English and whom we respected and admired greatly, lived openly with his mistress at the hotel. We had seen this sort of thing at Hourtin, but thought it was only the lower sort of officers who did it.

We took many interesting walks accompanied by our guidebooks, through the towns near there, and I got a bicycle, so as to go further. Al insisted that he would see as much and get more exercise by walking. I used my bicycle to commute from the station to the hotel, and thus was able to get up later each morning than Al, who walked.

We graduated from the rotary motors and flew the F. B. A.'s with Hispano-Suiza motors. Finally we came to our test. These were three in number, but we were allowed to combine them. There was a duration flight of two hours and a half and a duration flight of two hours, and an altitude test in which we were to stay above two thousand meters for one hour. We took these tests in two days. Altogether at San Raphael we averaged eight hours flying in five weeks. After our tests we flew the D. D. machines, and Al got to fly the Telliers, — a larger machine which was later adopted at the American stations.

After finishing our tests we received the French Navy brevet, and a large, fancy diploma with a naked lady on it. We wired to Paris that we had finished and as the Italian offensive was on and communication was slow, we figured we would not be ordered away for a week, so immediately went to Nice, hoping to make a trip to Monte Carlo and possibly the Italian border before we were ordered away. The trains were greatly disorganized, as they were running twenty-four to thirty troop trains a day to Italy, but we greatly enjoyed standing at the station  p23 and watching and cheering the poilus and the Tommies, as they passed through.

We got to Nice and planned to go on to Monte Carlo the next day. We met some Americans and a Canadian and would have had a glorious time. They were going to give us a dance that evening, had we stayed. At noon we received telegraphic orders to proceed to Paris without delay, so we started packing at once, packed up at San Raphael and got to Paris Monday morning, November 25th. We were surprised at the ease with which we got around at the station. I attended to the baggage and Al looked after the tickets. We knew to whom to go; where to go; and what to say. It contrasted greatly with our other arrival in Paris.

On reporting we found we were to be sent to Felixstowe to fly the large Americas. We did not leave until the morning of the 28th and spent the two days with Bob Lovett, Gates, Sam Walker and Dave Ingalls, who all happened to be in Paris at this time. We went to the theatre to see a French comedy, and were able to make a little out of it. We saw 'Wally' Winter who has since been killed, in Paris, and heard news of a great many of the Huntington boys who had come over. We also met Lieut. Hull and Ensign Fallon, who were to be with us at Felixstowe!!!

We went down by train on the 28th and took the boat that night to Southampton, arriving in England about noon on Thanksgiving Day. After being in the South for so long, we noticed the cold a great deal. Thanksgiving dinner we had at the Savoy, where we stayed. Then we reported to Headquarters, and Captain MacDougall, to whom Al had letters of introduction, asked us to lunch the next day, the 30th of November. We met his wife and daughter, and they served cold turkey and mince and pumpkin pies, which made it a real Thanksgiving dinner, although a day late. We disgraced ourselves eating.

As more men arrived from the United States, they were set at work cutting trees, clearing and grading the land, and erecting more hangars, barracks and work-shops. We were able to find skilled labor among the enlisted force for almost anything we wanted to do; carpenters, masons, plasterers, machinists, etc. When I left in the spring, the station was practically complete in every detail.

We were held up for a long time in our flying due to the lack of spare parts both for planes and motors. New apparatus was slowly coming in, but nothing with which to repair our worn‑out and broken down equipment. However, the machines that crashed were carefully salvaged and from these recovered parts we were able to build up new motors and, to a lesser extent, reconstruct the planes. We heard a great deal of talk of the impracticability of the French motors because of the great amount of hand fitting done to them which made it almost impossible to interchange parts. However, you never know what you can do until you have to. We took crank-shafts, pistons, cylinders, and crank-cases from different motors and turned out rebuilt ones that ran their apportioned fifty hours as well as the new ones. These motors were Hispano-Suiza and Clerget.

McIlwaine and I were allowed a pretty free hand in our departments and we followed quite closely the methods which had worked so successfully in our own training at Palm Beach and Huntington. Lieutenant Commander Bartlett, the new C. O. at Moutchic, knew how to handle us as efficiently as he did the old regulars and always managed to get the best and the most out of every one and yet maintain a good feeling throughout the entire command.

Late in May, 1918, I was sent to Clermont-Ferrand. MacLeish was in command of our party until near the end when he was taken sick and I had to finish up his job. He succeeded in arousing so much enthusiasm and keeping all hands so good-humored  p25 that we made fast progress and incidentally broke most of the school records. The work of the enlisted men whom we had brought along as observers was as good as if not better than that of the officers. MacLeish was also able, by means of his tact and industry, to maintain friendly relations with the school staff despite the fact that at times there was argument and some feeling over questions of leave, etc.

On July 12th we left Clermont for Paris. There we found everything in a mix‑up due to the insistence of the Marine Corps in Washington that the land flying of the Navy should be done by them. We saw our dreams of a crack naval squadron that we had striven so hard to obtain and perfect sort of vanishing into thin air. As one result, we were again broken up and sent out wherever there was room.

I consider that this station was by all odds the most important one abroad. Every seaplane flier had to pass through it in order to have the finishing touches added. It was presumed to have no part in training a pilot to fly, but the fact was that the average man had to have a preliminary period of instruction before he could be trusted not to smash up. This was made necessary by the hasty manner in which the pilots were turned out from many of the training stations at home.

No matter how up to date the schools at home were in machine gunnery, bomb dropping, navigation, etc., Moutchic was always two to six months ahead of them. Its main function was to keep abreast of all seaplane matters in England and France and adopt the very best and latest for our pilots.

The idea of the C. O. at Moutchic was to keep tabs on every pilot from the moment he arrived, so that when Paris wanted men for a certain type of work those most experienced in that line could be ordered away. Enlisted observers passed through this school also and at first were arbitrarily assigned to pilots, but this was changed until the two best suited temperamentally and in efficiency were paired together for the final tests. If a pilot and an observer did not keep up to the standard set they had to go through the course again.

I never saw officers and men work harder at any station, and  p26 when the Armistice came along, Moutchic was superior, in my opinion, to any Allied seaplane training station.

Sunday, Jan. 20, 1918

Dearest Mother:

Mr. McDonnell arrived the other day and acted as a regular Santa Claus; it certainly was wonderful to get all those nice letters and presents, and it really seemed very 'Christmas‑y,' as you would say. Please thank everyone for their very nice letters. I have written you this before but want you to surely know about it, as I don't feel certain that all my letters get there. I am very glad indeed that our letters got there on the day; we couldn't have timed them better, could we? Your letters are fine, Bub, and you have absolutely no idea how welcome they are; nobody can write such letters as you do anyway.

Mark Walton (you remember Mrs. Walton at Norfolk) and Mr. Atwater, whom you also remember my talking about, arrived at the place where we are at, and you have no idea how fine it seems to see someone who has just arrived from the United States. Charlie Fuller and several others from Norfolk are due here any day now.

Yesterday I went over to a near‑by station and someone asked me if I had ever known a Mrs. Emerson, who this man said had asked about me. Come to find out, Mr. & Mrs. Emerson were living in a château near‑by, and Mr. Emerson is acting as architect for one of the largest naval base hospitals in France. I  p27 couldn't be there long enough to see them, but hope to later. I found out that their château is about forty kilos from where Bart and I are stationed.

Am now staying with Mr. De Haven at his house and it is perfectly fine. His two little girls are very, very nice, and make you feel very much at home. When I come home in the evenings, little Olga, who is Betty's age, meets me and escorts me up to my room and acts like a hostess of three times her age. Am getting so that I can understand French quite decently now and am improving in talking. After dinner we always have a game of chess and I usually get licked too.

The château is right near or on the ocean and it is beautiful in the evenings when there is a good sunset. It is quite warm now and the peasants say it is going to stay this way.

Received your letter with the Yale statistics, which I will fill out shortly. Bart and Mose​1 and Mike and I are going to leave here shortly; probably in two weeks, but as usual we can't say where. We are both very well indeed, and everything is going finely.

Lots of love to you, Bub, and to all the family.