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him.  They said he had always been interested in aeroplanes, and that his only ambition had been to become a pilot.  They showed us, hanging in his room, several model planes he had built entirely on his own.  Balsa-wood kits with accompanying blueprints had not been available to him.

In the 88th Fletcher had been called "The General", usually abbreviated to "Gen".  He had brought that nickname from training, and I never learned how he acquired it.  He was regarded as a first-class pilot with amusing eccentricities, qualities that combined to make him popular.  He was the most taciturn man I ever knew.  He was not surly, just disinclined to talk.  When anyone spoke to him he answered pleasantly enough, but always in a manner that seemed to close the subject.  And until someone did speak to him he remained silent.  Now and tgen a group would gather around McCordic and question him on various topics, just trying to make him talk.  At such times his face would brighten into a faint grin, the only trace of expression I ever saw on it.  He would kibitz for hours at our poker games, but never made any comment, and his facial expression never changed.  In short it always seemed to me that McCordic's mind worked well along mechanical lines but that otherwise his development had been seriously retarded.

Somehow I was never assigned to fly with him until one day early in September of 1918.  Other observers who had flown with him seemed to like him.  But his behavior, on theat one flight of ours together, still mystifies me.  At the time it made me resolve never to let him pilot me again, and I notified our adjutant that I would not.  On that day I had been sent to reconnoiter along a short stretch of the Aisne river, ten or twelve miles inside German territory.  We had to fly below broken clouds, and cruising above those clouds was a patrol of German chasse.  They showed no disposition to come over to our side after us, but when we started a run toward the Aisne they moved as if to cut off our retreat.  I shouted through the speaking tube to McCordic, but he kept going as if he had heard nothing.  Again I shouted and got no response.  Then I fired a couple of shots.  He heard and looked around.  I pointed to the Germans and gestured to him to turn back.  He did.  After stalling around for a while we tried a second run toward our objective and exactly the same thing happened.  Finally on a third try we reached the Aisne.  As usual we saw no Germans on the ground, only a pontoon bridge that no one was using at the moment..  When we got home and landed I found tha McCordic had