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of the plane, cleaned and reloaded by the armament crew. If the observer wished he could supervise the reloading or do it himself. It was advisable to inspect every cartridge that went into the magazines, for some were visibly faulty and might cause a jam. The loading also had to include tracer bullets properly spaced. Im my magazines every fifth bullet was a tracer.

In 1918 Cazaux was rather an important place, but you will not find it nowadays in the index of the Michelin guide books. In picking a site for a school of air gunnery, the first requisite is to find a place where practically nobody lives. The scholars must do a good deal of shooting in the air. All their bullets come to earth somewhere in the vicinity.If that went on in a populated area somebody's windows might get broken. The French located their school far down in the southwestern corner of France. That corner has such populous places as Bordeaux and Biarritz.  But about halfway between is a region which in 1918 was perhaps the most thinly settled part of the country.  It is called [[underlined]] les Landes. [[/underlined]] It is flat, sandy, and covered with scrubby pines. 

Les Landes kept expanding, for sand kept blowing further inland from the Bay of Biscay, covering land that had been productive. That used to bother the French. I recall reading articles about the problem in L'Illustration when I subscribed to that journal in the 1920's and 30's. I have read no mention of it for a long time. That may be because L'Illustration died in WW2. More likely it is because the French nowadays are building superhighways everywhere. If you like superhighways you would be silly to worry over what a little sand does to farmland.

Once more I boarded a train at Gondrecourt for a trip via Paris. The direct line had just been cut by the Germans at Chateau-Thierry. Our train took a long detour southward by the way of Troyes. Next day we made the long run from Paris to Bordeaux, spending a second night there. Thence we took a railroad that ran down the coast. About 40 miles south from Bordeaux we passed Arcachon, a place to which I returned on Sundays while I was at Cazaux. Arcachon was the first seaside resort I had ever seen. Perhaps that explain^[[s]] why I have always remembered it as the most beautiful. It was not that the buildings were especially splendid. It was rather the setting, on an almost circular bay dotted with sailboats.