France
29/5/17.

Dear Ones All,

I am sitting in my hut awaiting orders to start on a night bombing stunt.

Later- 11.45 p.m.

No, I’m not. It’s called off. I had just got that first sentence written when an orderly came with a message that I was to go up and try the air. I went up for about half an hour and found it was so thick that I could scarely see the ground and if it hadn’t been for my little electric lights on my instruments it would have been impossible to tell which direction was skywards and which earthwards. It was a disagreeable little trip altogether as I had to make three attempts before I could get the machine on the ground; and once my engine cut out completely but fortunately I was high enough to be able to nose-dive and catch it again before the propellor stopped, by switching on to my gravity tank after which she ran quite nicely.

The stunt to-night was bombing an aerodrome about 20 miles over in Hunland and I must confess that I’m glad it didn’t come off for I am tired out after a succession of hard days. Last night before I went to bed I discovered that I had had just 6 hours sleep in the last 60

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very
we are

to fly them yet and as Harry Lauder says "that takes a bit of doing" Strange to say that until the day before yesterday I had never flown anything but "pushers" and I had flown five different types of machines at that. So several other of the pilots here and I were started off on one of the easy stable types- a B E 2 E, I put in a couple of hours on that and flew one back from No. 2 Aircraft Depot, about 30 miles from here yesterday. To-morrow at 7 A.M. I am

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I don’t suppose they will be hard to fly- everybody says they are easy anyhow

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came out here to France.

Day before yesterday I was made Acting Flight Commander of "A" Flight, our Plight Commander having been sent home for a rest. It is rather nice because it means that I’ll get my third "pip" back as soon as they knock off that word "acting" and also an additional 5s per day, but gee whiz you earn it. The responsibility is a fearsome thing.

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Must close now. Awful sleepy. Heaps of love to each one of you, Dear People.

Yours as always,
Eric.