II. HARDBOILED 22 III. MY FIRST SCRAP 50 IV. BRERETON’S FAMOUS FLIGHT 73 V. TROUBLES ON THE GROUND 99 VI. THE WILD RIDE OF A GREENHORN 121 VII. EILEEN’S INSPIRATION 139 VIII. DOWN AND OUT AND IN 163 IX. THE COURT OF INQUIRY 192 X. BECOMING KULTURED 219 XI. ESCAPED ALMOST 238 XII. THE PRIVILEGES OF PRISONERS 253 XIII. “COMING OUT” 276 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS GEN. WILLIAM MITCHELL, COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE AMERICAN AIR FORCES, AT THE FRONT _Frontispiece_ FACING PAGE AN OPERATION ROOM OF AN AMERICAN SQUADRON AT THE FRONT, SHOWING BATTLE MAPS, WAR PLANS AND PHOTOGRAPHS 34 THE VILLAGE OF VAUX ON THE DAY PRECEDING THE BATTLE OF VAUX 74 THE VILLAGE OF VAUX DURING THE BATTLE OF VAUX, JULY 1, 1918 78 TANKS GOING INTO ACTION, AND TRACKS LEFT BY THEM 128 PAGNY-SUR-MEUSE, SHOWING PRISONERS CAPTURED BY THE AMERICANS AT ST. MIHIEL 154 A CAPTURED GERMAN PHOTOGRAPH SHOWING AMERICAN PRISONERS 200 COLONEL BRERETON, MAJOR HASLETT AND OTHERS BEING DECORATED AT COBLENZ 296 INTRODUCTION Major Elmer Haslett has made a valuable addition to the literature of the World’s War in writing the volume to which these lines must serve as introduction. “Luck on the Wing” has two distinct sources of value: first it presents a clear, graphic picture of the life led by our fighting airmen during the three great actions in which American soldiers played so important a part—Château-Thierry, St. Mihiel, and the Argonne—and best of all the picture is a truthful one: and, second, it, all the more forcibly because often quite unconsciously, brings out clearly the lack of understanding of the functions of Air Service, a lack which in the final analysis was responsible for the greater part of whatever of dissatisfaction and disappointment with this branch of the Military Service there existed in the American Expeditionary Forces in France.