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Show AVIATION STUDENTS PLEASEDWITH TASK Their Camp in Italy Ideally Situated in Mountains Near Rome VISIT THE CITY OFTEN Hard Work and Serious Study Combined by the Young Americans. (Correspondence of the Associated Press.) AMERICAN SEAPLANE TRAINING CAMP, Central Italy, April 20. Americans Ameri-cans in training here to become submarine subma-rine hunters and coast protectors combine com-bine hard work and serious study, varied by occasional trips to a near-by town or. less frequently, to Rome. This is the first school in Italy for Uncle Sam's aerial sailors. They attend lectures, learn French and Italian, go through all the lessons up to "solo" flying, fly-ing, when they are allowed to fly alone, thence on through careful training to the time when they are recommended as fit for officers. Next their names travel over the Atlantic to the war department, and finally they become officers and have their names enrolled among the fighters for the United States. "I know of no greater glory than that of being an aviator," said the American ambassador, Thomas Nelson Page-, to some of them at a lunch given in their honor. Camp Well Located. Their camp is located near the banks of one of the volcanic lakes in the mountains moun-tains north of Rome. The winter and spring have been mild and the student aviators have been flying almost every day since they came, under the direction of Italian Instructor pilots. They utilize the lake for bathing. On their Saturday afternoon and Sunday Sun-day holidays they ride over to a cathedral cathe-dral town set on a big rock and they gc to church, see the sights, spend a little money on restaurant food, possibly put up overnight at one of the many little hotels ho-tels that are languishing here since the war cut off tourist traffic and they ride back again Monday morning for a new week's training. Those fortunate enough to have toothache tooth-ache or teeth in the need of repair may go to Rome for that purpose. Uncle Sam not yet having provided a dentist exclusively ex-clusively for this camp, as he has at the bigger camp for aviators in the south of Italy. Good Teeth an Asset. As teeth connect with the nerves which are supposed to regulate the sense of equilibrium, it will be understood Just how important commanding officers consider con-sider such troubles. Without a proper sense of equilibrium a man can't fly without with-out running the- risk of breaking his neck or a valuable machine. Sometimes money becomes a drawback to the Rome excursion, in view of the irregularities of paydays. One sharp . youth from Missouri overcame this handicap han-dicap by borrowing French, English or American money from his comrades. In Rome he exchanged this for Italian paper money at the rate of SVi lire to the dollar, spent what was necessary to seo the sights and returned to the camp with more money than he had when he started, start-ed, lie repaid his debts at the rate of 5 lire to the dollar. |