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 and their necks. The Americans have an endless streak of luck in being able to fall out of the air and collect themselves uninjured from amidst a pile of kindling wood which was the machine. As 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 Boche at a high altitude. It looks over here as though there would be about two years more of war, judging from what most people say. It is to be hoped that after twelve to eighteen 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 am glad that we have at last come into it and that it will be no half-way 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. II ESCOLE D’AVIATION MILITAIRE AVORD, CHER, FRANCE. Friday, July 13, 1917. You see it’s Friday, the thirteenth, 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 _Rouleur_ class which I smashed in has the same machine as those that fly with a 45 P motor. Only it is throttled down, and we are supposed to keep it on the ground--just about ready to fly, but not quite getting up--a speed of about 30 m.p.h. When there is the slightest wind we can not roll, because the wind turns the tail around and swings the machine in a circle--a wooden horse--_cheval de bois_. I rode 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 O.K. 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 talked to me a bit in French.