rps.

[Illustration: (C) U. & U.

_The Lafayette Escadrille--First Americans to Fly in France._
(_Lufbery on left, Thaw on right._)]

So the two great protagonists of the opening years of the
nineteenth century deplored their military blindness. In the opening
years of the twentieth it was healed. All that Wellington strove to
see, all that the cavalry failed to find for Napoleon is to-day
brought to headquarters by airmen, neatly set forth in maps,
supported by photographs of the enemy's positions taken from the
sky.

Before describing the exploits of the airmen in actual campaign let
us consider some account of how they were trained for their arduous
and novel duties.

To the non-professional an amazing thing about the employment of
aircraft in war has been the rapidity with which pilots are trained.
The average layman would think that to learn the art of manoeuvring
an airplane with such swiftness as to evade the attacks of an enemy,
and to detect precisely the proper moment and method of attacking
him in turn, would require long and arduous practice in the air. But
as we have seen in earlier chapters, inventors like the Wrights,
Bleriot, and Farman learned to fly with but a few hours spent in the
air, with flights lasting less than ten minutes each. So too the
army aviators spent but little time aloft, though their course of
instruction covered in all a period of about four months.

Some account of the method of instruction as reported by several out
of the hundred or more American boys who went to fly for France may
be interesting.

As a rule the aviators were from twenty to twenty-five years of age.
"Below twenty boys are too rash; above twenty-five they are too
prudent," said a sententious French aviator. A slight knowledge of
motors such as would be obtained from familiarity with automobiles
was a marked advantage at the start, for the first task of the
novice was to make himself familiar with every type of airplane
engine. The army pilot in all the armies was the aristocrat of the
service. Mechanics kept his motor in shape, and helpers housed,
cleaned, and brought forth his machine for action. But while all but
the actual piloting and fighting was spared him, there was always
the possibility of his making an untimely landing back of the
enemy's lines with an engine that would not work. To prepare for
such an emergency he was taught all the intricacies of motor
construction, so that he might speedily