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glued-on patches. Eac^[[h]] such patch was marked by a small, black German cross stencilled on it.  No plane stayed in service long without accumulating at least a few such markings.  Once in July we found a round hole about 3 inches in diameter in the upper right wing of a Salmson in which I had been on a mission with one of the 88th's pilots named Pete McNulty. Evidently a German 77 shell had passed through, but its fuse had been timed to go off farther along in its trajectory.

On one of my early reconnaissance flights from the Ferme d'Alger I happened to see on the ground flashes which I was sure came from the guns that were shooting at me. I thought I had made a discovery that ought to interest the French. I carefully marked on my battlemap the exact spot from th which the flashes had come. Back at home I reported what I had seen to Lieutenant Joseph Philippe, the only officer of the squadron who could converse in English. His comment was "You are a good observer. That is precisely where the guns are." I said "You knew they were ^[[then?]]" "Oh, yes" he replied. "They have been there several weeks." I said "But they are less than two kilometers from the front lines.  They are in easy range of your ground artillery.  Why haven't you blasted them out of there?" "My friend, you do not understand", said Philippe. "The Boches know where ^[[underlined]] our [[/underlined]] anti-aircraft batteries are. If we shoot at theirs, they will shoot at ours, and nobody will be any better off.  If they start a drive here they will shoot up our anti-aircraft and everything else within range.  Until then, both sides are treating this as a quiet sector. You may have noticed that their chasse just now isn't bothering our reconnaissance planes. We are returning their courtesy."

To an American that seemed an odd way to carry on a war.  But then I reflected that the Germans and French had been fighting for nearly four years. They had built up a tacit understanding to live and let live as long as neither side was trying to capture territory.