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-4p

vibration of the plane suddenly change to a violent shaking.  The pilot, slowing down his engine as much as possible, limped home.  On landing we found the source of the trouble.  A bullet had split off a small piece of wood from one end of our propeller.  The groove left by the bullet was visible on the split surface.

Such experiences moved Littauer, our commander, to request through channels that an effort be made to educate the men of the 77th division.  The upshot of that was a delegation of infantrymen camped beside our airfield the first week in September.  It included one man from each infantry platoon in the division, while our pilots took several of the men for rides to show them what the war looked like from the air.  I never knew how the experiment turned out, for just when it was finished our squadron was ordered east to take part in the St. Mihiel lark.  The 77th division became someone else's responsibility.

Please do not think I am singling out that division for criticism.  It was one of several divisions that were made up of drafted men, and it happened to be the only one of that kind I ever worked with.  From what I heard later I doubt that the others were much better trained.  No doubt the men of the 77th were on the average as brave and as intelligent as those of any other.  It was all due to inadequate training.

In 1955, with Helen and Bess, I drove over the old familiar road leading from Chalons to Reims.  The manor house of the Ferme d'Alger was gone and I could not even make out where it had stood.  A lot of new roadbuilding was going on where the airfield had been.  The village of Prosnes had been rebuilt, but you could not even see where Nauroy had stood.  Its site was covered with tall weeds.  A new road had practically obliterated the old German front line. Along the slope of Mont Sec the French front line trench that I had visited in 1918 had become a gully three or four feet deep.  In the intervening 37 years earth had crumbled and washed into it I have a picture somewhere of Helen picking wild blackberries in that old trench.  For a mile or so on both sides of the old line the ground was vacant and uncultivated, as I had seen in other parts of the old battle front.  Trench warfare affected the terrain much as strip mining does.