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^[[15 15]]

June 12, 1973

Dear Alice,

I have not smelled the odor of burning castor oil since World War I. I first encountered it at Tours, and thereafter, throughout my brief flying career, it was the most familiar of scents. One of these days I am going to buy a bottle of castor oil, soak a paper towel with it, and set the paper on fire. One whiff might awaken in my mind a whole train of long-buried memories. Marcel Proust got that kind of effect from the taste of one of his aunt's cookies. It is a great help in writing about remembrance of things past.

For some reason all aeroplane engines in WWI were lubricated with castor oil. Perhaps it functioned better than any other oil then available over the wide range of temperatures to which those engines were exposed.  Anyhow, you got a strong odor of burning castor oil whenever you were near an aeroplane engine that was running. Aeroplanes nowadays give off a different smell. Petroleum chemists must have discovered an oil that is better, or at least cheaper.

The airfield at Tours, though one of the most up-to-date in France, had no concrete runways.  Planes landed directly into the wind and since the wind shifts direction a fixed runway simply wasn't practical. Every airfield had a mast with a windbag on top to show the direction of the wind at the moment.

I sent [[strikethrough]] thee [[/end strikethrough]] ^[[you]] late^[[[ly]] two photographs of the Caudron model G-4 aeroplane. If you say "G-4" in French it sounds to the American ear something like "Jay cat". Hence planes of that model were called Jaycats by all the hundreds of American aviators who were trained in France. I don't know whether Jaycats had ever been used at the front or not. More primitive machines had seen service there in the early