Fifty more American pilots from the ground schools in the States arrived yesterday. They have spent their first month in digging trenches and foundations. They arrived in France August 22 via England, and are glad to get here. One of them tells the story of their passage. One of the boats was torpedoed in sight of the Welsh coast. There were seven transports and a convoy of eleven torpedo boat destroyers. They were in the dining room when they felt a heavy jar. All rose to their feet and turned white, a few screamed, and others cried, “Steady.” They got to the deck in time to see a destroyer rush to a spot a half mile away, drop a sinking mine, and start up again. Before the destroyer had gone a hundred feet the ocean over the bomb raised up in a mighty spout, which lifted the rear of the destroyer thirty feet on the swell. It was one of the new mines which destroy a submarine within a radius of six hundred feet; meanwhile they had manned the life boats. Inspection proved that the torpedo had struck a glancing blow and had not exploded. It made a rent in the hull of the ship four feet long in a hold containing baled cotton. The ship contained three hundred nurses besides the troops. It is claimed that the submarine was sunk. It seems the mine does not harm the destroyer any more than a rough sea. Well, so much for today. YOUR SON. _Ecole d’Aviation Tours, France, October 4, 1917._ DEAR BOB: Your letter arrived about three days ago. I am mighty glad to hear that you are going to Lake Forest to school. You will make good; you have to make good because your name is Ely—and we are here to prove that the Elys make good. You will be away from home a good deal and I think that will do you a great deal of good. But when you do go home, make the most of it; it is your duty to be with mother and father as much as you can; they need you and it is the one way you can repay them directly. There is another thing, confide in mother and father; just because they are older, don’t you think for a moment that they do not understand children. They will not blame you if you tell them things which you think may be wrong, and your conscience will blame you if you do not tell them. And they will show you the best way out of trouble; father can give more of a sermon in three minutes than any minister I ever heard could preach in an hour—and it will not make you feel foolish either. That’s at home. At school you will have no trouble making friends. It is worth your while to make acquaintances with everyone, there is good in all of them. But the best of them are none too good to be your friends. Most of the boys swear and smoke and tell vulgar stories and a few may try liquor; they do it because men do it and they want to be men. Men do it usually because they started when they were boys.