Dinsmore Ely

We are near the Front now – twenty-five miles. Last night we saw the great searchlights playing and the star shells floating at the end of their fiery arcs. But the country here is fertile and well cared for, and the only signs of war are a few scattered graves of unknown victims of the battle of the Marne. We take long walks when not at work – work being the business of waiting for a chance to fly. There were seven machines broken yesterday and no one hurt; expenses for the day must have been thirty thousand dollars. It is a rich man’s game. I had four rides. The machines are better here.

Today I got half a cup of water, so I washed my teeth. Next Sunday I shall shave. I cleaned my boots from a puddle in the road. Water is scarcer than wine, but I am still teetotaling. I am tired tonight.

Good night,Your Son.January 20, 1918.

Ma chère Famille:

Yesterday I made an appointment with the town barber to have him cut my hair at 5:15 P.M. I was quite prompt but found him unprepared. He lived off a little court yard which was connected by a close to the main alley of the borough. In crossing the threshold of the kitchen I entered the tonsorial parlor. His work bench was next to the family range, and a moth-eaten mirror reflected pox-marked people. The madame set the chair in the middle of the room and brought the scissors and comb from the other room. The twelve-year old offspring was arrested in the midst of rolling a cigarette when his father commanded him to hold the lamp. So the little fellow stood transfixed with the half-rolled cigarette in one hand and the family lamp in the other. Every time the father hesitated, the boy tried to set down the lamp and finish the cigarette, but the father would jump to it again and keep the boy from making any headway. Believe it, the boy kept his father hard at it. Sometimes the lamp nearly lost its balance, but the cigarette kept level, so I took to watching the cigarette. He never would have succeeded in rolling it if the father hadn’t had to go to the shed to get the clippers. As it was, he returned before the boy could light up. Meanwhile, the old dame, who needed a shave more than I did a hair cut, was preparing to feed the animals. Once when she was leaning over me to get a dipper of water out of the pail under the barber’s table, she lost her balance and fell into my lap. But she didn’t spill the water and the old man didn’t miss a clip. She would stop her work from time to time and come over with folded arms to see how the hair was coming off. The professor didn’t cut any off the top. When I suggested that he cut just a little I think it hurt his feelings, because he changed my hair from a “Broadway-comb-back” to a “Sing-Sing-sanitary” in about ten strokes. But it was the quickest hair cut I ever had and he didn’t tell me I needed a shampoo, so I gave him eight cents instead of six.

Your Son.January 31, 1918.

Dear Bob:

It has been wonderfully clear for the past three nights, and in the light of a big London raid, the French have been expecting a raid on Paris. Last night I went to bed early. Thump – thump – boom – boom – boom; I rolled over to sleep on the other side. Boom – boom – bang – bang – bang; my ears felt funny and I turned over on my back and looked at the ceiling. Bang – crash – crash – thunder; something must be wrong. I sat up in bed, to see figures passing the moonlit windows and voices whispering between the continuous detonations which jarred the night air. Someone lit a light, and a hiss went up from the barracks. One heard the words “Boche” and “bomb” oft repeated. I yawned and pulled on the other sock. We could hear the hum of motors as we crowded out of the barracks doors, scantily clad.

The air was crisp and clear. The moon was just rising. It was twelve-thirty, and there were stars in millions. Now the crashes came just over our heads. First, over to the east, just behind a clump of trees not half a mile away we would see a couple of sudden flares; then came the crash of the report, followed by the receding war song of the shells as they went up through the darkness; then would come the bright glare which would blind the sight and scare away the stars, leaving the sky black; and finally, as we would blink and begin to see the stars venturing forth again, the great crash of the shell on high would reach us. Then we would discuss how close they may have come to the place and whether the falling shells would come near us. But the hum of the planes came and went in the direction of Paris without our seeing them, for only the explosion of shells marked their course across the sky. We are thirty miles from Paris. For fifteen minutes we watched the explosions of the anti-aircraft shells. Then suddenly there were low grumblings, booming with increasing rapidity of succession. The groups of lights signaling in the Paris Guard formation flashed off and on, changing location with great rapidity. Then came the returning hum of the motors, the line of shells flaring in the sky, a series of red-rocket signals, and the raid was over.

Today I had my first rides in the Spad. It is the most wonderful machine going. It has an eight-cylinder motor, and is built like a bulldog. It is the finest thing in aeroplanes, and I certainly hope I get one at the Front.

The first copy of Life came yesterday. Say, you couldn’t have given me a present that would cause us all more pleasure. I read every word of it, and now it is going the rounds. Thank you for it ever so much.

Well, we have an appel (roll-call) and I must stop. Love to you all. Write me when you can.

Your ever lovin’ brother,Dins.February 10, 1918.

Dear Family:

The first week here was restless, the second nerve-wrecking, and now I have relaxed and settled down to pleasant, contented routine which varies according to the weather. When it rains or is foggy, I come over alone to a little wine shop in a near-by village; its name is Tagny-le-Sec. Here I have chocolate, toast, and butter for petit déjeuner (little breakfast). Then I write and read and draw according to my whim till lunch time. If the sky has not cleared in the afternoon, I go for a walk and up to the barracks where I lie down and read until supper. After supper a bunch of us go to a wine shop and talk until roll-call at nine o’clock.

When the weather is favorable, we stand out on the field eight hours a day waiting our turn to fly; that is a strain. Usually we fly a half hour a day, but at times, one may go three or four days without a flight, but no matter how long you wait, a single half hour in the air satisfies all desire for action, excitement, and exercise for the time being. That is one of the strange things about aviation. Though a man is strapped in his seat and moves no part of his body more than three inches, an hour in the air will keep him in excellent physical condition, provided he is nervously fitted for the work. And the mind and eyes are equally fatigued. Absolute concentration is necessary. The more I see of the game, the more I believe that nine-tenths of the accidents and deaths are due to the inability of the pilot to concentrate or to recognize that concentration is necessary.

We are using the best and fastest fighting plane now, the Spad, Guynemer’s plane. In starting, one must immediately throw every nerve into stress to keep the machine in its given course; not doing so means a quick turn, a crushing of the running gear, and a broken wing. This is an inexcusable accident with a trained pilot; yet it happens about once a day because someone is only three-fourths on the job. In gaining speed, the machine must be brought to its line of flight, the danger here being to tip it too far forward and break the propeller on the ground. This is easy to prevent, and so is inexcusable, yet it happens once a week because someone forgets himself. There is danger in leaving the ground too soon, and danger in mounting too quickly.

About one pilot a month is killed at the Front by attempting to mount too quickly while close to the ground. At a height of twenty feet, one must be all alert for sharp heat waves that are liable to get under one wing. When one comes to make the first turn, there is danger of too great a bank allowing the head-on wind to get under the high wing and slide you down, yet this almost never happens because by the time the pilot is up there he is all present. All this time he must have been alert for arriving and departing machines which are dangerous, not only because of collision, but because of the turbulent current of air they leave in their wake. One machine passing through the wake of another acts like a wild goose frightened by a passing bullet.

As the pilot gains height and distance from the field he may begin to relax and get his geographical bearings, and it is well for him to do so, for the strain he was under in those first thirty seconds would exhaust him in fifteen minutes. He can then glance over his gauges and listen to his motor. When he gets to a thousand or fifteen hundred meters he can lean back, throttle down his motor, and count the clouds with a freedom from worry which the motorist never knows. At the Front of course it is different. There the pilot must make a complete study of the whole horizon every thirty seconds to be sure of his safety from enemy planes, meanwhile changing his course and height continually to evade the anti-aircraft shells. Most pilots are brought down at the Front by surprise, which again is due to lack of concentration.

Having had a pleasant flight and enjoyed the beauties of nature, it is time to drift down to the home roost. You locate the hangars, cut your engine down low, and strike your peaking angle. The good old machine purrs like a kitten, the clouds whisk by, you breathe a sigh of relief and wonder if dinner will be any better than lunch. Well, anyway, it was a good ride. And just there is where “dat dar grimacin’ skeleton pusson begins to rattle dem bones.” Maybe you have let the plane flatten out its peaking angle a little and lost your velocity. Maybe the engine was turning over a good speed because of your descent when you last noticed it. Maybe the evening air has quieted down somewhat and it was safe enough to drift along and settle as long as you had altitude. But now that you are fifty meters from the ground and the piece two or three hundred meters away and you have come to horizontal flight a little and your plane is slowly losing its speed of descent and your engine is still throttled down too slow to even roll you along the ground – and the sunset is beautiful – like a hole in the sidewalk, your plane gives a sudden lurch, you jump all over and find your controls “mushy” – you slip sideways, the ground coming at you – you jerk open the throttle – the motor, cold from the descent, chokes a bit – you can see the grass blades red in the sun – then she catches! God bless that motor – she booms! There is a moment of clenched teeth while the plane wavers in its slide, and then she bounds forward, skimming the ground, gaining speed just in time to clear those deadly telegraph wires. With eyes set on the horizon, you let her sink, and every nerve tense, she pulls her tail down, touches the ground in a three-point landing like a gull on the wave. She rolls up and stops; you take a breath and feel the color come back to your cheeks. Slowly you raise your glasses to your forehead and undo your belt. Slowly you raise yourself out and drop to the ground. Pensively you wander back into the group of aviators who watched you land.

“Some landing like a duck,” says an American.

“Très bien,” says the monitor. But you go over and lean against a tent pole silent, and without a smile. You know what your comrades do not know – that “a fool there was,” and he lives by a fool’s luck. And you swear an oath to yourself and the dear old world that you’ll never be caught like that again.

Most everyone has the experience sooner or later and almost everyone lives to be a wiser and more prudent man, not excluding

Your son,Dins.February 13, 1918.

Dear Family:

We are right here among the pines. Great forests of splendid Norways stretch away over the rolling sandy country, broken only by the clearing around some old manor château with its radiating vistas and its towers standing white amidst the green. Would you think that France with its dense population and old culture would be covered with great forests, almost primeval in the abandon of their growth? Throw in a few lakes and it would be Wisconsin.

Yesterday I cut the noonday roll-call and succeeded in losing myself as an excuse. As I swung along the road, I could feel the spirit of the blazed trail humming in the pine boughs; and my breath came deep. Here was a clearing with the logs fallen and the smallest branches cut and tied in neat sheaves – there, off to the right, was a hill which mounted above the tree tops. I climbed to the top and saw the stretch of woods on all sides with here and there a rock-strewn, barren stretch of sand. Going down the other side, a pheasant clapped up from under foot and made me start. As my eyes glanced along the trail ahead of my wandering feet, I saw many deer tracks. They say that since the war, wolves are not infrequent; and have we not heard of wolves in the streets of Paris not many decades ago? Now and then a rabbit bobbed out of sight. It soothed me and yet made me homesick. Out there in the open woods with the gentle spirit of the mighty pines, I could not help despairing at the question, “What good is war?”

Today we had an accident. A machine had mounted to fifty meters when it stopped climbing and started to lose speed. It turned to come back to the piece, but slipped sideways and fell in “vrille,” and crashed headlong to the ground. The tail broke backward and the motor gave a final groan, as in a death struggle. Men covered their eyes. It was a quarter of a mile away. All started to run, and I was first there. The pilot, a little Frenchman with whom I had been exchanging French, had crawled out on top of the wreck. He sat shut in by the wreckage. There was a whimper on his face. I climbed up on the wreckage and held him in my arms. He called me by name and then managed to tell me that his arm was broken. Well, you can imagine how relieved I was. I handed him out to the others who had arrived by this time. The doctor came up and cut the clothes away from his arm. There was no bruise nor blood, and as he began to regain his color, we tried to divert his mind. About the first thing he asked for was a piece of the propeller for a souvenir. Well, we put him on a stretcher and into the captain’s car and went to the hospital in a little town, Senlis, some two miles away. He seemed to prefer me to all his French friends. The hospital was a nice old Catholic institution, with old Sisters and young Red Cross nurses. We left him contented and resigned to his lot of another two or three months before reaching the Front.

The village in which we found the hospital has been heavily shelled in the early days of the war. Every third or fourth house was a monumental ruin to the price of war, but by some happy chance the two beautiful cathedrals of the town had been spared, yet the ruins seemed very old and the vines which formerly climbed the walls now fell about the broken stones and trailed through the blind windows, giving the whole an aged aspect; and between these ruins were the untouched abodes of unconscious inhabitants.

Truly yourSon.

Dear Family:

A letter clipping describes that part of France which is shrouded in the historic pages of knights and kings; that part which has pleased me so much when written by another, makes me think of the poorer classes who have lived and died in the environment of their birthplaces without ambition, that those knights and kings might carve their deeds of blood on shields of gold.

In this great war, these poorer classes, peasants still, are the poilus who keep the trench mud from driving them mad by that pint of the red French wine, and they sit about me now in a little old wine shop whose many-colored bottles, oft refilled, are as numerous in shapes and styles as the decades they have served. The walls are spotted and stained, and the ceilings smoked, but the delicate moldings in the stone tell of a day when this was the thriving hostelry of the village. Now the poorly dressed, worn-out veterans of the Great War bend over the scarred tables and confer or wrangle as to how their work, so hard begun, will end.

Dinsmore.February 18, 1918.

Dear Family:

I am told that the American captain at this school is looking for me to offer me a second lieutenancy in the U. S. Army. I must decide immediately, and I am tempted to toss a coin.

Well, this is the result: I signed for the release from the army Français. I was refused a permission to Paris and took it anyway to find out from the American authorities what would become of me. My trip to Paris was unsuccessful. I returned to camp late at night, and when I awoke in the morning I was told that the permission had been granted after all and that I had been ordered to the Front at eleven o’clock that day in Escadrille S 102, Sector Postal 160, located near Toul. I stopped over at Paris a day and a half and landed here day before yesterday. So now, God be praised, I am at the Front. It has taken eight months to come to it, but I guess it will be worth it.

Your Son.Near Toul, France, February 26, 1918.

Dear Father:

Plessis Belleville was a great strain. I had to fight the curse of idleness and it is a losing fight, as with a man who is muscle bound who tires himself out. Reading, studying French, drawing and walking helped, but they were a failure through lack of inspiration. No Americans had been sent to the Front and there was a rumor that we were to be held there till the United States took us over. Then came the offer of our commissions as second lieutenants, and so inactive had our minds become that it upset us to decide. I asked for my release from the French Army although it is not what I wished to do; yet it seemed best. It means that I could hardly expect to go to the Front in French service and might have to wait months for action in United States service. I was in despair.

The next morning I asked for a permission of twenty-four hours in Paris. It was refused. I took the eleven o’clock train the next morning with an officer. I myself was mistaken for an officer. He was good company. We went and had a Turkish bath. That night I went to the opera. In the morning my marraine’s grandchildren came up to see me. I held them in my arms. Children seem to love me. I think children’s love protects people from wrong and trouble.

That day I found that I could not learn anything from the U. S. Army, so I went to the opera again in the afternoon, but it was poor. Then I walked in the crowds and laughed at all who would laugh with me. After a good dinner, I rode back to Plessis with a pretty girl who was good company. That night sleep came easily and was sound.

The hoodoo was broken.

The next morning when I awoke, they told me I was to leave for the Front at eleven o’clock. I was assigned to the French Escadrille S 102, Sector Postal 160, near Toul. Well, I was busy packing and getting papers signed and saying good-bye to everyone. So now I was just where I wished to be.

It is the custom to take two days in Paris without permission on your way to the Front. My marraine was surprised to see me back so soon. I spent the day shopping and then we went to see Gaby Deslys last night. We sat with three American soldiers who had asked us to get their tickets for them. The show was full of pep and American songs, besides having some really wonderful dancing. Between acts there was a regular New York “jazz” band playing in the foyer. It was a jolly way to say good-bye to Paris.

My marraine had received your letter telling of wiring me money. As I have received no mail whatever for more than three weeks I knew nothing of it. I deposited the money in the Guaranty Trust Company of New York, 1 and 3 Boul. des Italiens, Paris. I have a trunk at the Cécilia Hôtel, 12 Ave. Mac-Mahon, Paris. With me I have two duffelbags and a suitcase. At the “Tech” Club, University Union, 8 Rue Richelieu, Paris, are some films and key to my trunk. There are some post cards and perhaps a few odds and ends at my marraine’s. Thanks very much for the money; I hope I shall not have to use it.

Well, I went down to the station, and just naturally took the train for the Front as if I were going to Milwaukee (if such a city does exist anymore). There were three American flyers still in the French Army on the train. Wallman, Hitchcock, and another; the first two have been doing exceptional work lately. They explained to me how to kill German flyers, and I am quite anxious to try it now. We passed through some towns which had been shelled, but they didn’t look so terribly bad. Arriving at Toul I descended and informed the captain by telephone that I had arrived. An automobile was there in twenty minutes to take me out.

So I am just where I have been working for eight months to get, namely, in a French escadrille, at the Front; flying the best French monoplanes, fighting plane, and with a commission (only a second lieutenant) in the American Army waiting for me. All I wish for now is to be completely forgotten by both French and American authorities until I give them particular reason to remember me; and this may very easily happen (the forgetting part).

And now I am living in a nice little room, which with the room adjacent, is shared by four Frenchmen; one of them is an architect of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. In the morning chocolate and toast is served to us in bed, as is the French custom. We rise at eleven and have the day to do as we wish, provided it is not good flying weather. Breakfast is served at twelve and supper at seven.

The first day was rainy, but the second day was beautiful, and the captain, who is a corker, gave me a ride in one of the best machines. It was only for forty minutes to look about the country, and of course I did not go near the lines, but I was very lucky to get a ride at all. It will be some time before I have a machine of my own and can work regularly, but that is what I look forward to. Yesterday two Boche planes came over, and the anti-aircraft guns blazed away at them, but all the good it did was to reassure me in the fear of their guns; when they hit it is by accident.

Last night I heard booming and stepped out of the back door. The moon was full and the sky clear. But the whole sky in front of the moon was mackerel flecked with the puffs of anti-aircraft shells. This was literally true, the sky was speckled as thickly as with stars. A minute after I was out a plane passed before the moon, and for thirty seconds I could see the light reflected on its wing. But the number of shots they fired at it appalled me. You could see the little burst of flame which left its puff of smoke. They went off at the rate of seven a second, and they kept it up steadily for twenty minutes. Get out your pencil. The air was still and the smoke remained; probably the smoke from the first shell could be seen to the last (8,400 puffs in twenty minutes and every puff worth $100 – $840,000 without getting the effect). As a matter of fact, I imagine it was more for the moral effect upon the populace of the town being bombarded than anything. All night the sullen boom of the cannon can be heard, one boom a second, every other minute. It sounds like a heavy person walking on the floor above. We are twenty miles from the Front and we can get there in thirteen minutes.

Well, I shall probably have some interesting things to write these days, though it is possible that it will be deader here than anywhere else; that is sometimes the case.

Today it was cloudy and I went down to the village and made a couple of sketches of the cathedral which is very fine indeed. There is months of study in it alone.

Good night all; my love to everyone.

Your son,Dinsmore.Escadrille S 102, S. P. 160, March 5, 1918.

Dear Family:

It will soon be boresome if I trouble you to read of all my narrow escapes. As a matter of fact aviation is so full of them that they become almost commonplace. What happened this time was only an incident of the training for real encounters. There is a little lake near here, and in it is a German aeroplane as a target. We go over and dive at that target and shoot. It is the second good flying day we have had. The captain told me to go over and shoot. On my first drive at the target I shot two handfuls of bullets. I had been peaking 200 meters with full motor. I pulled the machine up too quickly and there was a rip, a crash, and the machine shot into a vertical bank upward. I swung into ligne de vol by crossing controls. A glance at my wing showed the end of the lower right wing torn away. The machine was laboring but I still could guide it, so I returned to the school and landed without mishap. It was one more miracle of a charmed life that I returned. They all came out to congratulate me. Well, sir, the whole front edge of my lower right wing was broken away and bent down. The end of the wing was gone and shreds of braces and cloth dangled along. I really cannot understand why a machine has a lower right wing when you can come home without it. It was caused by too brutal handling at a formidable speed. I had been led to understand that a Spad could peak 500 meters with full motor and redress quite strongly. I had only peaked 175 with three-quarters motor, which I learned was far too much. I begin to think I am a fool, for reason tells me anyone but a fool would have been afraid. But, honestly, there was no more fear than with a blow-out on a tire. Yet all the way home I knew that it would be probable death if anything more went wrong. I came home because I knew the landing ground and it was only five minutes’ flight.