Portland, Ore. They are corporals in a French flying squadron
situated within an hour's flight of an American infantry training camp.

Seated around the rough mess table in their popotte--a tiny building
stuck away on a ledge of rock under a cliff--they told all about the
bombing of the railroad stations and ammunition factories at Rombach and
Ludwigshafen.

"The old Boche almost got me that time," said Lehr, lifting the oil
cloth table cover to knock wood. "The engine of my boat died on me just
over Rombach. I pulled everything in sight and kicked every lever I
couldn't see. Nothing doing; anti-aircraft shells bursting right on a
level with me. We began to drop. I turned around to the observer and
pulled a sea-sick grin.

A Sneeze Spelled Joy.

"'It's all off, kid,' he said. 'Looks like we're through.'

"We dropped from 5,000 meters to 3,000. Then the engine sneezed, coughed
and took up again. My heart and the boat came up 2,000 meters in one
jump. The rest of the formation had gone on, dropped their bombs on
Rombach and were beating it for Ludwigshafen. By the time I got back to
my right altitude I could see the effects of their bombs. The railroad
station was burning like a haystack and smoke was coming from the
munitions plant. I circled the town and the observer released the bombs.

"Then I turned nose back towards Verdun and crossed the lines. A couple
of miles behind the line the engine ran out of gas, so we came down in a
field."

They circled several times on the French side of the lines before
crossing in order to reach the necessary altitude. Kyle dropped eight
bombs, most of them on the munition plant at Ludwigshafen.

"The sky was full of cream puffs," he said, "but it didn't bother us
very much because most of the stuff was breaking above or below us. We
took our time, aimed for the objective, and dropped the bombs.

Can't See Bomb's Results.

"You can't hear them explode or see the results unless you're flying
quite a distance behind the squadron because we go so fast that by the
time the fire gets under way we are miles off. Except for Lehr's
machine, we maintained our formation and came out flying in the same
position. If there were any Boche patrols out in our neighborhood they
knew better than to tackle us.

"When we came down I found my observer unconscious. I thought he had
been hit, but he had only fainted from the cold.

"You big rummy,"