On my first flight, after joining the squadron, I was taken out over the lines to get a look at things, map out my location in case I was ever lost, locate the forests, lakes, and other landmarks, and get the general lay of the land. One thing that was impressed upon me very emphatically was the location of the hospitals, so that in case I was ever wounded and had the strength to pick my landing I could land as near as possible to a hospital. All these things a new pilot goes through during the first two or three days after joining a squadron. Our regular routine was two flights a day, each of two hours' duration. After doing our regular patrol, it was our privilege to go off on our own hook, if we wished, before going back to the squadron. I soon found out that my squadron was some hot squadron, our fliers being almost always assigned to special-duty work, such as shooting up trenches at a height of fifty feet from the ground! I received my baptism into this kind of work the third time I went out over the lines, and I would recommend it to any one who is hankering for excitement. You are not only apt to be attacked by hostile aircraft from above, but you are swept by machine-gun fire from below. I have seen some of our machines come back from this work sometimes so riddled with bullets that I wondered how they ever held together. Before we started out on one of these jobs we were mighty careful to see that our motors were in perfect condition, because they told us the "war-bread was bad in Germany." One morning, shortly after I joined the squadron, three of us started over the line on our own accord. We soon observed four enemy machines, two-seaters, coming toward us. This type of machine is used by the Huns for artillery work and bomb-dropping, and we knew they were on mischief bent. Each machine had a machine-gun in front, worked by the pilot, and the observer also had a gun with which he could spray all around. When we first noticed the Huns our machines were about six miles back of the German lines and we were lying high up in the sky, keeping the sun behind us, so that the enemy could not see us. We picked out three of the machines and dove down on them. I went right by the man I picked for myself and his observer in the rear seat kept pumping at me to beat the band. Not one of my shots took effect as I went right under him, but I turned and gave him another burst of bullets and down he went in a spinning nose dive, one of his wings going one way and one another. As I saw him crash to the ground I knew that I had got my first hostile aircraft. One of my comrades was equally successful, but the other two German machines got away. We chased them back until things got too hot for us by reason of the appearance of other German machines, and then we called it a day. This experience whetted my appetite for more of the same kind, and I did not have long to wait.