t j I Letters From the Front | "THESE CRAZY AMERICANS," HIS REWARD FOR FLYING THROUGH THUNDERSTORM Walter J. Shaffer, from whom letters have frequently been printed in the Harrisburg Telegraph has graduated from the landing class as recounted in his previous communication and is now making 500-mile flights. Recently he successfully navigated a heavy thunderstorm. When he landed and his'instructor asked him where he had taken shelter during the storm he told him that he had flown through it all. Throwing up his arms his teacher exclaimed "These crazy Americans, I'll give it up." Shaffer is a son of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Shaffer of Dauphin and went to France several months ago as a member of the Lafayette flying corps. Previous to that he had taken a course in flying at Essington. He expects soon to be fighting the Hun in the clouds above the front. His latest letters follow: Tours. France. t Sept. 13, 1917 j Dear Mother: Can't make this letter long be-j cause an inspection takes plaxc at 2 p. m. and I have to dress. So al- ! lowing half an hour for dressing I! only have 45 minutes to write. Of course I cannot write all there is to j tell because I don't have two days. I got my dress uniform yesterday. It is very pretty, but with me inside the effect is ruined utterly. You never saw such a sun-burned boy in all your lTfe and what with a light blue uniform it sure shows up. Ran into a whole lot of hard luck; to-day in the shane of lazy moni- j teurs. Did I tell v"u I was promoted to landing class. This is where one is taught how to land and then sent to solo flying—flying alone, you know. I have been down to this field which is a long way from camp,! for four days and have not had a ride. Such a bunch of stallers I never did see. Between women and mushrooms nothing else is accom-' plished. You see, this flying field being far away from camp and no- j body to watch them, the moniteurs. have a lovely time with the women, which makes up the daily audience. J When they tire of women, which I takes a long time, they fly down the field and pick mushrooms. And there you are. Little Walter aits down and fumes and frets all to no end, for a Frenchman cannot be! hurried. They are not built that way? My biggest fear is that winter will be here before I have a chance: to fly alone, which sure would be sad, since nothing is done in the win-! ter. f Can't Understand Speed. Some of the Americans must have , complained last night, because this! morning they sure were on the job. However, it was my hard luck to have them stop just as it came my turn, and now I fear 1 will not get ; a chance for another week, because they only get ttiat way once in seven j days. These Frenchmen cannot un- j derstand why we are in such a hurry to get there since we will be sent right to the front. A French man's method of going to flying • school, you know, is to kill as much time as possible and they sure do it.! Unfortunately, the moniteurs figured! we wished to do the same thing.' Two days ago 1 had some instrucUon as to how to operate a Gnome motor,> to-day I get some shopwork, besides all this we have lectures every day. j The higher I go in the promotion line the less time I have, so I t'earj these will have to be unduly, short, because I have not the time to | write. I really should be sleeping now. as I feel I need it. When I be gin flying alone, if I ever get a! chance, map reading and compass! will be added to my studies, and then 1 I doubt if I'll have time to everi write a postal. My moniteur told, me he would try me out to-night if weather was good. Glad I got my suit yesterday since ■ all permission to Tours will be dls-i continued to-morrow. You see how fast our work is increasing. Will f Our Specials Saturdays 1j f Save You Money ||j L. & G. Granite Ware at Substantial := Reductions t We make little savings here and there, t and share the benefits with our customers 3 | No. 8 Guaranteed Large £Q„ | | Granite Kettle .... v/C | Milk Kettles Collandcrs Coffee Pots Dippers ! k. Stew Pans Wash Basins t Dish Pans Foot Tubs £ Also exceptionally low prices on our dur- 5 : £ able, attractive blue and white agate ware ; 2-Quart Pitcher -19 c 5 ! k- 3-Quart Pitcher 5o - 1 t -l-Quart Pitclier c r: 2% -Quart Coffee Pot 55c 5 Z'A-Quart Coffee Pot 79e ! | Special in Tinware ' on. J E Wash Boiler, metallic bottom .. . OUC t Champion Grub Boxes Bread Pans t: Peerless Grub Boxes Cookie Pans -*• z - Funnels Tin Cups t Come Early and Get the Best Selection | t There's a Recollection of Quality t Long After the Price Is Forgotten | Imperial Hardware Co. J ! £ VM-l NORTH THIRD STREET. PHO\H 5205-J. J FRIDAY EVENING, | write more first bad weather we | have. WALTER. | Tours, France, Thursday, Sept. 20, 1917. I Dear Mother: Had a little dose of cleaning house | this week, as the French authorities 1 decided it was for our good to have j ceiling whitewashed. They made the| German prisoners do it, and they! sure did smear things up. The! whitened ceiling is also supposed to J add to the light given by the two small electric globes. It is raining to-day, which is Just my luck, because it was nearly my turn to go aloft in my second solo | flight. "Solo" means just what it \ says—"All alone with a big audience watching every move." I had my ! first flight the other day, but I was j too busy flying to get bashful about i my audience. It was merely a strait! hop and I landed with quite a bump. I Now 1 am waiting to take the "tour! de piste" (circle of field) . almost; reached me last night, and here .t is I raining this morning. Why go to ' the movies for thrill. One should join the solo class. There sure is ! some close calls. I have seen fel | lows go up in every state of nervous ness and come down and land all ; right. Two days' watching these fellows fly alone for the first time i is not conducive to a peaceful frame j of mind, but after watching the punk landings they get away with, without smashing anything, my oon | fidence has gone up considerable. The last few days we were all wor ried about being radiated (sent back I to civil li£e for inaptitude) because a I rumor got abroad that a man would ; be radiated for smashing two ma j chines. Sounds sort of rough, don't | it? Well, it is, but only on the ma | chine, because pupils are rarely nurt. Question of Nerve. However, this rumor was squashed yesterday by the chief pilot, who said we need have no fear of radiation as long as we obeyed rules and ; showed some intelligence in the air. One man asked for his radiation yes terday because he thought he was j not fitted for flying. Every flight was agony for him. Yet I have ; seen him land a number of times I without breakage. Nevertheless, he ! broke two machines all to sticks when he first began. He had more nerve than I have, for I maintain j that saying you are afraid to fly takes more nerve than continuing until you are killed. I would no doubt do the latter, as Dad can bear witness to the fact that I generally stick to the finish in anything I start. Speaking abouj. hunting, Dad, j you should be over here. Quail and , pheasants are sure plentiful and the | country is so open and flat that they hunt them in airplanes, j One hears some funny remarks in i this solo class. One fellow inno i cently wanted to know whether it was possible to fly with rubber boots. A comrade immediately answered j him dryly: "Surely, but you might 1 bounce on landing." After a week's hunt after the bar | ber, finally got a hair cut yester j day. I had an object in view, of course. Wishing to take some pic tures in my uniform dolled all up and was shot six times. Will send you pictures and films as soon as de - veloped. Don't expect anything like brother Krnest's because you will be disappointed. These were only snap shots. Am not taking any chances of going to Tours as thoy are becoming so strict In camp that If one Is not back on the dot he Is In Dutch, and In bad. Generally the Jug for him. Besides Tours is five kilometers i away and one can only Vet several hours' permission, so you one must needs hurry back. Otherwise, I would give a Tours photographer a chance to display his art. Art It sure would be if he wished to give me a flattering Impression of myself. I am almost as anxious to see those films finished as you are. Wonder how much I resemble a conductor? WALTER. Tours, France. Wednesday, Oct. 3, 1917. Dear Mother: At last I have a chance to catch up with my correspondence, for to-day is cloudy and threatening to rain any minute. Naturally there is no fly ing. It might interest you to know that just as 1 finished writing your last letter a messenger came into the barracks with the announcement that Shaffer was to go up for his altitude test immediately. Takes Altitude Test. It was quite a surprise as well as a delight to me to know that the chief pilot knew a man of such name was a pupil. So I got me ready with a big bearskin-lined over all suit, climbed aboard, and away we went. We went away (when I say "we" I mean the airplane and I) worried though, because it would r.ot take a big book - to tell how much 1 know of a gasoline motor. This was a very delicatt? motor too and one had to know how to adjust it to get the right speed. The engine is con trolled by two levers which look like this (Here is a V within a triangle). You notice they work on a small arc and there are two levers, one big one and a little one. There are numbers on this arc and when the motor is tried out on the* ground, the number at which the best speed is attained is found and remembered. Well, the mechanics found the two numbers, and told me them, but un fortunately I forgot what number the big lever was set for as soon as I got off the ground. And then I had some interesting time trying to find where it belonged, for there I was, going over vineyards, forests, etc., juggling those two doggone levers all the time and when I got to my height of 10,000 feet I was still jug gling. I had to stay at that height one hour and a quarter, and before I got up there I was wondering how cold I was going to get, as X had heard enough tales from other fel lows who had taken the test that one could not put enough clothes on. It did not worry me though. I was so busy playing (?) with that darn en gine that I forgot to get cold. On the Wing. I suppose the frictioli produced by | the speed with which my brain was working kept me warm. Oh, no, I was not worried about coming down; That was the least of my troubles. One never need worry about that, you know. Ha! Ha! The thing I feared the most was that the motor would stop, and then I would have to take the test all over again. It's a two-hour flight, you know, and gets very wearisome. It was real in teresting to me though, because I sure did learn a lot about a motor in that time. One has a recording j baragraph to record one's height, 1 and since the time is also marked on I the same record, it is very easy to { tell your height and how long you have been flying. A little pen is worked by a delicate set of levers, j and this pen draws a line on a page wrapped around a cone. This paper is marked off in squares, and read ing across the paper three squares is 15 minutes, while the height is read up. This pen records one's every move, when one goes up, the pen goes up, letting a thick purple line as it goes, when you fly level, the line goes level. So you can see that the faster one goes up the straiter up the line is. Coining down the same way. Incidentally, you should see my line coming down. I made it in about three minutes. Even at that. I came down in spirals the whole way, trying them at different angles and both to the right and left. I got one up too steep one time and the bottom nearly dropped out of my stomach. I came down so fast. I Why should I worry, I had a whole lot of space under me—and then again, there was the whole earth waiting with open arms. I landed' safely and yesterday was sent out on a "petit" voyage, a small trip of about a hundred kilos, with" may and compass. And there I was up against it again, for I knew very little of maps and nothing of com pass. I.ost. Naturally, I was soon lost. What surprised me so much was the large scale to which the map was drawn. j The funny part of it was that I was i flying over my objective point for j 4 5 minutes and did not know it.; Finally I it up as a bad lob, and thoroughly disgusted with my self started down in a spiral glide Ito find out where I was. I had been flying at 1,000 metres and when I I got down to 400 I found myself heading right for tile place 1 had been hunting for an hour. It sure was a welcome sight and I felt so pleased that my luck had held so good that I nearly came to grief, or "spilled the beans" as the fellows say. You know, I was coming down all the time, but I had been up so high that I saw no use in worrying about how close I was to the ground for a few minutes anyway—and then I suddenly looked at my altimeter and nearly had heart failure to see jit registering zero. Mv eyes, how j ever, told me I was snll some 200 metres up, and my eyes were right. I We are cautioned by the authorities I always to make a circle of the field at 200 metres when coming down I from high altitudes. This is to ac custom our eyes to distance, which i calculation, it is said, one loses if | he flies at height altitudes long. | Strange to say, I have not found it . so, but I make a circle of every field ! Just the same for one can pick out I the bad spots in it in that way and i iook over the ground very thor oughly. Starts on Triangle. Returning from this "petit voy age" I nearly got lost again, but finally got back home, only to be sent out on the "triangle." This is a cross country trip of some 500 miles made in the shape of a triangle. A baragraph is carried along on all these trips and records both one's time and height. One has to land at the other two points of the tri angle. and they give one a paper to be stamped and signed at each point. What is more important, they also give one a little book which looks like a. check book and is practically used for the same purpose. Treated J.ilie Princes. This is to pay for your expenses if your motor goes bad and you have to come down and land. Naturally while doing these cross-country tours, everybody keeps an eye out for castles and chateau* so that if their engine goes bad thev know what to do. For they sure do show | an aviator a royal time when he I makes a forced landing like that. | Couple fellows were lucky this wav, their motors stopping right over vmne prett" chn*"n"x. and thoi- were taken in. given Hie best In the house, taken pheasant hunting, and in fact, treated like princes. And then some body wondered why I dressed in my good uniform when I started on my triajurUT I forgot to say that when HARRIBBURG TELEGRAPH the authorities give us this little book, they tell us If we land near a small tovfti to ask for the mayor and no one else; furthermore not to pay for a thing. I.lst ens good, don't it? Still. If one piakjn a forced landing the triangle must be flown all over again. Something lam not crazy to do, for I assure you. It's hard work. I finished one yesterday, and believe mo a busier man you never did see, between watching rny map, engine revolutions, compass, not to mention trying to keep right side up, I had my hands full. The first leg of the trip I founa very easy, as I had a big road and rail road to follow all the way: further more It was smooth sailing at 800 metres and I had little to do except keep that road and railroad in view. It being so peaceful I made the time useful by learning how to read the map better, checking up on little towns, picking out country roads and following them with iny eye, and then comparing them on the map. Pretty soon 1 got the hang of the thing. Every little crook In the smallest road was marked, and when we came to a forest with a tiny lake In the center, there was the lake on the map. Almost Goes Over. And then I came down to a lower level to land, and fell Into a bumpy atmosphere the like of which I never rode In before. The way I was bounced around was a crime. I felt as if I was driving a cork, and then Just as I had leveled out ready to land a puff got under the wings, and lifted me six feet. Fortunately the puff hit both wings evenly and sat me down flat again. It's re markable how thirsty one gets after flying awhile. And so 1 was at this first landing station. Worse luck, they had no water. Nothing, but cider, and when I saw the mechanic coming with a bottle of this stuff I decided. I was not thtrsty. It looked more like castor oil, and heaven knows'l had smelled enough of that while flying. I finally overcame toy qualms and tasted some, and found it very good. My luck still seems to hold because the mechanic on look ing over my engine found the gaso line line broken clear in half. It's a question how much country I floated over In such blissful Igno rance. I was soon off on the next tour, and it being about 3 p. m. and very hot it was getting bumpier all the time. On this leg of the Journey I followed a road with telegraph r>oles half the way that is when I was not too busy keeping level, for even at 1,000 metres I was being bounced around. About half way there, this tour, I got a real scare. I had been so busy with feet and hands keeping the machine under control that my muscles were tense nearly all the time. Gets Cramp in I/Cg. 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Water d-I OA 1 Mennen's Talcum, 12c $1.68 Bottle $1.39 Beecham Pills, 15c | v —| $1.50 Clark's -| Q $3.00 Elastic Truss ■ Nuxated Iron, 57c $3.00 invalid $1 98 ounta ' n r ' n s e ' k° se 5-ft. length .. Pebeco 33c It requires to hold the rudder against | a puff of wind, and after an hour of this I began to feel a cramp in my right leg. Then X was up a tree, be cause I knew if I straightened It out the cramn would go a why. 1 also knew to do that, I would have to let go the rudder on one I knew enough about those puffs I had been riding over to know what would happen in that case. Some thing had to be done though, and that quick, because the cramp was getting worse; so I locked my other foot in the rudder and slowly stretched the other leg out. Hits Rainstorm. My! what a relief. Got to the other station OK and there they, worked so long on my motor I feared I would not get back to camp' that night. It was 6:30 p. m. when' I started and since it gets dark around 7.80 here I figured my time would be about an hour, it sounded like an even break, so away we went. And then about half way to camp I ran Into a rainstorm about 1,000 metres high. As a novel experience! it had no equal, but I ani not crazy : to repeat the experience, at least not as a pilot. There are too manyi things to worry about. In the first! place, the rain hits you with such force It hurts and worse yet, and what Is so dangerous, it clouds one's! goggles and one cannot see. I tried different ways of keeping that ruin off my goggles. First I rubbed them off with my gloves at close intervals. That failing, I tried ducking nvy head, but there were too many drops to dodge, so I tried putting my one hand in front of the goggles and driv- ( ing with the other: that worked j pretty fair, and Just as I had given j myself up for lost, because it was' hard to see the ground, I ran out of! the rainstorm and came in sight of [ the camp. I had started to come | down as soon as I hit the rain so I j could see better. Thus, when I camel in 'sight of the camp I was only 800 metres up ond looking down beheld i a most abominable country to lajid' in. Absolutely nothing but vineyards' stretched in all directions. I h<id ! one experience with vineyards, you | know, so I was not crazy about com- | lng down there. As if in answer to j my forebodings didn't that doggone engine begin to miss. Right .away I began to do some more juggling' and wondering whether I could slide camp was In sight. The engine pick ing up a little then and I lmniedi-1 ately began climbing in order to get I all the altitude I could before she! stopped dead. The engine did notj stop though ond I soon landed, tired and sore in every muscle, but! happy in the thought that I had fin- i ished one "triangle." I have to do it backward before I'm finished. One of the officers came out when T climbed out and asked me why I did not stop when I ran into the rainstorm. And when I told him I wanted to finish the triangle and get back to camp, he shrugged his shoul ders in a flobbergasted way, and Bald: "I give It up. These crazy Americans are beyond me." And now X will answer a few of - 1 " Prescott Shoes F°r Boys . It's quite as hard to make boys careful about their s shoes as it is to keep a cat from catching birds. Careless b ness is a boy's inalienable right. It can't be eliminated, it \ \ must be guarded against. To satisfy parents we sell s^loes at are ni ade for boys—fortified against the at & j> tacks of boys' careless ways. '* •M# . t yy.w.j * Our line of Prescott shoes are moderately priced. ** "13 ' Below are a few numbers wo carry in stock. 3851 Tan Elco Blucher, Soft K309 Bordered Kangaroo K3Ol Gun Metal Button Heavy Shoe, but tough as r . 8 to l 3 y 2 $2.48 old hickory. ° to 13y 2 #1.98 j to 2 75 10 to Uy 2 $2.48 1 to 2 92.25 to 5# III""" $2198 1_ t0 . #2.75 K517 Gun Metal Button 2K to 5/ 2 $2.98 W to Goodyear Welt GSOO Box Calf Blucher 10 to 13y 2 $2.48 10 to I 3y 2 $1.98 1 to 2 $2.98 _________ 4168 Varsity Satin Calf Tip 2y to S l / 2 $3.48 KIOB Gun Metal.' English Button KlO5 Gun Metal Button , , r 11 to 13# $1.48 10 to 1 zy 2 $1.98 1 to 1 $2. <;> ' 2 to 2 $2.48 4to 5y 2 $2.98 to 5y $1.98 2# to 5y 2 11111,11 $2198 Wt Shoe the Wwle Family—We Sill Shxs F,r HH Wilks .1 Lilt 20th CENTURY SHOE CO. Shoes That Wear The Everybody's Shoe Store E. F. DEICHLER, Mgr. 3 S. MARKET SQUARE OCTOBER 26, 1917. your questions. As for the packages you sent, up to date I have only re ceived one. As for the white bread, goodness knows where that is. Nono of- the other packages came there, but, I think I got all your letters. 13 although they do not arrive regu larly, generally coming in twos and threes. % And now if I hacf nomc of your homemade bread I could say th novel ended happily. WALTER.
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