The strictly American aviation operations started in the middle of March, 1918, with the patrolling of the front from Villeneuve-les-Vertus by an American pursuit squadron using planes of the French-built Nieuport-28 type. These operations were in the nature of a tryout of the American trained aviators, and their complete success was followed by an immediate increase of the aerial forces at the front, with enlargement of their duties and field of action. By the middle of May, 1918, squadrons of all types—pursuit, observation, and bombing—as well as balloon companies were in operation over a wide front. These squadrons were equipped with the best available types of British and French-built service planes. [Illustration: © _New York Herald._ The Pilot in the Forward Gondola of a Zeppelin The front gondola of a Zeppelin is screened to protect the pilot and assistants. Searchlights and other means of illumination are carried on board to be used when necessary.] ONE MINUTE PLUS Three Attacking Hun Machines Downed by “Ricky” in About Seventy Ticks No one has succeeded better than Boyd Cable, in the _Red Cross Magazine_, in conveying an impression of what “Quick Work” means in the war combats between aeroplanes when the fighting machines are in expert hands. But after all it is doubtful if one can realize in reading how quick the action was, inasmuch as the fight took less time than you will require to read one of these columns aloud. As Mr. Cable says: “It is difficult, if not indeed impossible, to convey in words what is perhaps the most breath-catching wonder of air fighting work, the furious speed, the whirling rush, the sheer rapidity of movement of the fighting machines, and the incredible quickness of a pilot’s brain, hand, and eye to handle and maneuver a machine, and aim and shoot a gun under these speed conditions. I can only ask you to try to remember that a modern fast scout is capable of flying at well over a hundred miles an hour on the level, and at double that (one may not be too exact) in certain circumstances, and that in such a fight as I am going to try to describe here the machines were moving at anything between these speeds. If you can bear this in mind, or even realize it—I am speaking to the non-flying reader—you will begin to understand what airmen-o’-war work is, to believe what a pilot once said of air fighting: ‘You don’t get time to think. If you stop to think, you’re dead.’