White Pine news weekly mining review. [volume] (East Ely, Nev.) 1910-1920, 1918-05-05
AMERICAN B|RDMEN
ARE GOOD SHOTS

George Baird, somewhere in
France, has sent Phil. McKernan sew
eral copies of the Plane News, and
Mr.. McKernan has passed them along
to the White Pine News for ~perusal.
The Plane News is published at the
front every Saturday, at an A. s..
S. c., A. E. F. post. It is a single
sheet of paper, IA hx10h and one
hundred per cent live dope. 1t
throws intimate light on the life of
the boys in the aviation service, both
as TO when they are on duty or in the
hours of recreation. The American
humor is there and sense mingles
with nonsense. That the American
~aviators are good marksmen as well
as good filters is shown by this ex-
tract from an article under the cap
ton American Aviators VIII BE
Successful" The article. written by
Cadet William b.. Stone. formerly of
the Associated Press, says: THE
aviators of the American Army are
going to prove themselves the best
pilots at the front" After quoting
comments of both French and Eng
fish officers to this effect, the article
then goes on to quote Captain Pros
per Pelissier, chief pilot, who said:
THE American boys are naturally
good shots, and with the training
they are receiving here they will all
make aces at the front. Why, at c.,
where they receive final instructions
in aerial gunnery, the Frnech COM
handing officer had to issue orders
that the American pilots would not
shoot at ballons less than 200 yards
distant. They were breaking all the
ballons ON the place. They simply
shot rings around Il French pilots"
Another extract showing what the
wal has done and is doing for the
young men of America, is embodied
in Percy Noodles" with apologies.
by Lynn, who goes on to say:
Last April he was a sophisticated
fallacious or naive young man, this
Percy Noodles 1t depended on your
own point of view. Percy had defin-
tie ideas of the difference in the
Partisan and Current Events"
But he did not have the least notion
between a corporal and a colonel.
Neither did ID He was n of
these fellows that knew all the things
no one else knew, and none OF the
things that everybody else knew. He
knew just when it is permissible to
split an infnitive and precisely how
To use shall and will, and all about
Unity, Conference and Emphasis. He
knew who edited the Roman Classics
and who we're the originals in "A
Peoples Man." and ever to who gave
Bernard Shaw his first position as a
dramatic critic. He knew about the
proper time for dinner coats and how
to accept invitations.
He didn't know when an Eastern
college accent was an insult in the
middle west, or how to tango, or
that fo~ur-of-a-kind beats a clubhouse.
He didn't know Walter Johnson or
Jess Willard, and detested Charlie
Chaplin and Mary Pickford-bless
her little heart. His soul was en-
wrapped In Libraries, study and soli-
tary walks. And he didn't know how
to kiss a girl. And the war came.
He read the Presidents speech, re-
moved his thick-rimmed glasses, ard
walked out in the night.
The next morning he enlitsed. He
said nothing. He did his part-long
before the draft law was born. The
things he didn't know he has learned.
II isn't the same Perey-it's a bigger
Percy. Clean-cut, healthy looking,
besmeared with mud, he will remove
the sweat from his brow on the ami
versary of the war, stand in thought
a moment-and go back to work.
Thank God, there are thousands
of Percy Noodles.