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August 13, 1973
^[[16 16]]^[[15]] [[/strikethrough]] 

Dear Alice:

My training at Tours lasted barely a month. Then I received an order, dated February 19. It stated that I had successfully completed the course there, and directed me to report to the First Corps Aeronautical School, at Gondrecourt, for advanced training in aerial observation. That meant going over the same journey I had made at the New Year. I started from Tours instead of Saumur. I did not take an extra day in Paris again, though I had to stop there overnight. And when I reached Gondrecourt I found quick motor transport out to the airfield. All my railway travel in France, except the first trip from LeHavre to Saumur, was first class. As I wrote in an earlier letter, I enjoyed that mode of travel.
Gondrecourt had grown during the eight weeks since I had first seen it. New wooden buildings for the Americans had sprung up all over the place. The First Corps Aeronautical School was about five miles east of the town, near a dreary little village called Amanty. The American post there included much more than the First Corps School. It has a large landing field, with hangars enough to accommodate three or four squadrons at a time. (A squadron, in the French and American services, consisted of 18 planes, with their crews and accessory personnel.) The landing field was bordered on two sides by a forest. Dispersed through the woods were wooden barracks with camouflaged roofs. Amanty became the place where pilots and observers were sent to wait for assignment, and where newly formed squadrons assembled their men and equipment before being sent into action. 
The first air squadrons ever put into service by the United