difference to death was instanced in the case
where a white officer overheard one of them at the zero hour call out,
"Good night ol' world! Good mawin,' Mistah Jesus!" as he went over the
top.

"The colored boys," said Charles N. Wheeler, a distinguished
correspondent with the American armies, "are great fighters, and
are no better and no worse than any other group of American soldiers
in France, whatever the blood strain. They do take pardonable pride
in the fact that 'Mistah' Johnson, a colored boy, was the first American
soldier in France to be decorated for extraordinary bravery under
fire.

THEY CAN FIGHT AND SING

"The color line has about died out in the American army--in
France. They play together, sing their songs together--the blacks
and the white--and they go over the top together. They come back
together, too, the wounded, and there is no thought of the color of a
man's skin. They mix together on the convoy trains going up to the
front, and all sing together, sharing each other's dangers and their
joys. It is not an uncommon sight to see a crowd of white doughboys
around a piano in some 'Y' or Red Cross hut, singing to beat the band,
with a colored jass expert pounding the stuffing out of the piano. The
white boys enjoy immensely the wit of the colored comrades, and
many a bleak and drab day of privation and suffering is made a bit
brighter by the humor that comes spontaneously to the lips of the
'bronze boys.'

"The children of France love them. I suppose that is because
they wear American soldiers' uniforms. I have seen scores of white
children holding the hands of colored boys and trudging along on
the march with them or romping into their tents and sitting on their
knees and just exuding the affection that all the children of France
have for anything and everybody from the United States."

CHAPTER V.

THE WAR IN THE AIR

The Hughes report on air craft, submitted in October, 1918, contained a
full account of the difficulties, drawbacks and questionable management
that had held back the manufacture and shipment of airplanes to Europe.
In September there were on the French-Belgian front between 300 and
machines, all of which were in the scout and observation classes, with
no regulation combat planes of American build; but American airmen had
conducted many successful actions against German battle planes, and a
good many Americans were o