It was my first flight over the lines. I had been flying alone up and down our sector for half an hour. I had seen seven Boche planes a few miles off, but they had immediately disappeared in the clouds. From the first my motor had been running cold. I had attained the height of 4,700 meters. When I started to come down I found it impossible to descend and yet keep the motor warm enough to run. Clouds had gathered below. I tried to wing slip, but still the temperature of the motor dropped. So I wing slipped through the clouds. I had not planned on it, but they were 2,000 meters thick. I came down from 2,800 to 800 meters in some fifteen seconds, a rate of considerably over 250 miles an hour. If the fog had not been so thick the outcome would have been different for the engine would not have gotten so cold, but by the time I could think of adjusting my motor I was at 400. When I found the motor would not work it was fifty, and over a pine wood. I tried to turn back to a field, but started to wing slip, which is death, so I straightened out, let it slow down a bit, and then pointed it down into the trees at an angle of thirty degrees. It is less dangerous to hit an object that way than in line of flight. Things happened just as I expected. The plane mowed down seven or eight six-inch pines. The motor plowed ahead of me and the trees took the shock as they broke. Just before the machine hit the ground it pivoted on a tree and cut an arc, which slowed it up more. All this happened with the suddenness and sound of a stick broken over the knee, yet I was not jolted. The pine trees fell around me without touching me. The wings and framework and running gear and propeller were shattered, but I was not scratched. I was pinned in the very heart of all this débris, without a bump, a bruise, or a broken bone. Goggles on my forehead, a mirror within an inch of my face, and the glass windshield in my lap were unbroken, though the steel braces all about them were bent and broken. The gasoline tank under me did not have a leak. The rest of the machine was good for souvenirs. It was too big a mystery for me to understand. Yours in a horse-shoe halo. Son. _March 21, 1918._ MY DEAR MRS. HAMILTON: It was a pleasure to hear from you, for if ever letters were welcome it is here. People are so kind in writing that I really cannot pretend to answer as I should, but as you were so near my family, I hope you will forgive me if I let you learn the personal side of my experiences from them. Your letter came yesterday. The box has not yet arrived, but thank you for it in advance. The great German offensive began last night and we wait the results of the distant thunder. Our sector is quiet. If this is not the final scene of the war, I cannot look far enough ahead to see it.