The Mellette County pioneer. [volume] (Wood, Mellette County, S.D.) 19??-1971, 1917-09-07


Your friend, HENRY NELSON,
2nd Illinois Field Artillery Battery a
Camp Logan, Houston Texas
The following letter written by Ma
son /. Merrill, formerly OF Wood but
nov In training with the t ). avia-
tion branch of the army at Dayton,
Ohio viii be Of interest to his many
friends here. Through the kindness
Of his brother Scott Merrill of this
place we are permitted to print the
same.
Squadron r First Unit Wright Branch
Dayton, Ohio, August 2l, 1917
My Dear Sister and Mother;
Just short visit with you this eve
and its "the hay for mine Landed
here last eve, but was too late TO re-
port TO the commanding officer, 50
waited until today and was assigned
TO r Squadron of the First Unit, as
you see by my return address.
Have done nothing else today but
look around and get my equipment,
bunk, etc, set up and arrange to my
liking. Tomorrow ! really start to
work. Get up at 4:3o, wash, dress,
make up my bunk and sweep the bunk
room. Fall in for reveilee at 500,
then 60 90 mess.
At 500 they start flying and We are
supposed to be down at the hangers,
looking on and seeing how machines
are handled on the ground and In the
air, Just whenever we are not in a
GLASS room. And as we have only two
subjects to study, French and Topo-
graphy, you can sec that means that
we are to be there almost continuous
". They fly until about 1000 a. m.
Then from 1000 until 300 the solo
men have the field. solo men, are
fellows that are just about graduated
and therefore do their flying alone.
That is, they do not carry instructors
with them but have the machine alb
solutely to themselves.
Then the instructors fly again with
their pupils from 300 TO 4:30. After
that the time is our own, to do with
as We see lit.
Really its perfectly wonderful
place. The landing field is about two
miles long by mile wide (and they
are still enlarging it to what they
claim will be equivalent to five square
miles, The hangers. mess halls, bar
racks, tool shops, machine buildings,
etc. etc, are brand new and cover
several square miles OF land.
They at present have about 200 areo
planes and are expecting to get more.
Don't know how many men and in
structors they have, but think cadets
tor students as myself, OF which
there are about 2O0O enlisted men Of
the Signal Corps. Officers, Instructors
and Infantry Guards would aggre-
gate several thousands. Have only
been here day, but have already
seen so many machines in the air that
| have gotten over the habit OF stop
ping and gazing in a 'fly-catching at
titude.'
During flying hours there are al
ways twenty or thirty machines visa
bic. and saw as high as 40 in the air
at one time To-Day. They just sail
soar around like so many birds and
look as graceful as can be. Can hard
ly wait until they take me up for my
first "joy ride"
You see, when new Student re-
ports, they take him out several days
for what they term ''joy rides lie
where he never touches control of
any kind. But as the machines are
all eouble control and have identical
levers etc. in both the front and rear
seats. the student gets chance to
see how they work and what they ac
coIupish with the flight Of the mach
ltit. lllCil tlIC 10 SiNNif WI
tross of first one kind then another,
untl lie can tend to it ALL Then for
the next period Of training the stu
dert does all the flying but with the
ins Huctor always ready to correct
any mistakes.
When, the novice is sufficiently pro
ficient. he is permitted to take the
machine out alone and do solo work
Everyone has to have done pre-
scribed number of hundreds of min
utes, solo, before he is permitted to
tai.e test.
ED is good. here and we all have
bed2 and sheets. Some place. AwfuI
~ lappy. viii write later. Yours.
MAX.
Andrew Roach and wife of Warren,