ardor.

The danger, the romance, the thrill of air fighting, are things that
never were known in war until this one called into being vast aerial
navies that grappled in the sky and rained upon the earth below "a
ghastly dew" of blood.

There are no tales of this war more fascinating than those that have
been told by these men. Courage and modesty being inseparable, our
aviators avoid print and cannot be interviewed with any satisfaction.
But sometimes they write home to a mother, a sweetheart or a pal, and
these letters now and then come to light.

CHANCE OF LIVING NOW

"I cannot describe my feelings, right off the bat," said Eddie
Rickenbacker, the ace of American aces, the day following the signing of
the armistice. "But I can say I feel ninety-nine per cent better. There
is a chance of living now and the gang is glad." Rickenbacker became a
captain during the last phase of the war and has twenty-four victories
over enemy airmen to his credit. To Rickenbacker, whose home is in
Columbus, Ohio, the allied command gave the honor of making the last
flight over the German front and firing the last shot from the air on
the morning of November 11, 1918.

AIR PLANE'S TAIL SHOT OFF

In reporting this most remarkable occurrence Edward Price Bell, an
American correspondent, wrote as follows from the front:

A British observer, flying a powerful machine at 16,000 feet over
Ostend, had the machine's tail shot off by the direct hit of a shell--a
very unusual occurrence. The machine turned upside down, out of control,
and the pilot was thrown out of his seat. By some inexplicable maneuver
he managed to clamber on to the bottom of the fuselage of the machine,
astride of which he sat as if he was riding a horse.

Though the machine was out of control, owing to the loss of its tail
planes, yet by moving forward and backward he so managed to balance it
that it glided fairly steadily downward, although upside down.

He successfully brought it across the German lines, and came safely
to within a few hundred feet of the ground. Then he crashed and was
injured, but is now recovering in a hospital.

When it is considered that this incident occurred at a height of 16,
feet, over hostile territory, and that during the airman's terribly
precarious ride he was subject to antiaircraft fire, and liable to the
attack of hostile scouts, it is not too much to say that his was a
record achievement.

Recently, another airman was shot dow