A special channel had been created for the reception of applications
from Americans, and my own was favourably replied to within a few
days. It took four days more to pass through all the various
departments, sign one's name to a few hundred papers, and undergo the
physical examinations. Then I was sent to the aviation depot at Dijon
and fitted out with a uniform and personal equipment. The next stop
was the school at Pau, where I was to be taught to fly. My elation at
arriving there was second only to my satisfaction at being a French
soldier. It was a vast improvement, I thought, in the American
Ambulance.

Talk about forming an all-American flying unit, or escadrille, was
rife while I was at Pau. What with the pilots already breveted, and
the eleves, or pupils in the training-schools, there were quite enough
of our compatriots to man the dozen airplanes in one escadrille. Every
day somebody "had it absolutely straight" that we were to become a
unit at the front, and every other day the report turned out to be
untrue. But at last, in the month of February, our dream came true. We
learned that a captain had actually been assigned to command an
American escadrille and that the Americans at the front had been
recalled and placed under his orders. Soon afterward we eleves got
another delightful thrill.


THREE TYPES OF FRENCH AIR SERVICE

Thaw, Prince, Cowdin, and the other veterans were training on the
Nieuport! That meant the American Escadrille was to fly the
Nieuport--the best type of _avion de chasse_--and hence would be a