Lafayette Escadrille

While all this training was going on, the ranks of American aviators were filling in at the top.

The celebrated Lafayette Escadrille, the American aviators who joined the French army at the beginning of the war, was taken into the American army in the late summer, and all the Americans who were in the French aviation service who had arrived by way of the Foreign Legion were called home.

They were put at instructing for a time.

Then their several members became the veteran corps of later American squadrons.

He toured that summer, and by fall, he was the most famous aviator in America.

Not Rickenbacker, not the veterans of the Lafayette Escadrille, not the men who had actually fought.

Ormer Locklear, the carpenter from Fort Worth, who had taught himself to walk on wings.

Now you have to understand what barnstorming was in human terms.

While all this training was going on, the ranks of American aviators were filling in at the top.

The celebrated Lafayette Escadrille, the American aviators who joined the French army at the beginning of the war, was taken into the American army in the late summer, and all the Americans who were in the French aviation service who had arrived by way of the Foreign Legion were called home.

They were put at instructing for a time, then their several members became the veteran corps of later American squadrons.

This air unit was finally placed at 12 flyers and 250 men, and before Christmas there was a good number of them, a number not to be told till the carefree and uncensored days after the war.