Series 01 Part 02: Hughes family correspondence, 3 April 1917-22 September 1918 - Page 41
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[Page 41]
3.
was one of the two who were afraid to fly the machine and left everything concerning them to me without ever even giving me the moral support of flying one once to show the pupils they weren't afraid of them. Well when my new dual control proved such a success the C.O. sent for Elliot and told him that he must either instruct on these machines or go! Elliot then told the C.O. that he had already flown one & liked it very much & was quite willing to instruct on them. The C.O. told me this and said he was going to put all these machines in Elliot's flight & I would be in it too. I knew perfectly well that Elliot had never flown one and had lied to the C.O. about it because the C.O. had told him a week before to fly the machine & he had'nt done so. However I said nothing about that to the C.O. & everything was arranged. Meanwhile Elliott was having a copy of my dual control made so that he could instruct also, while I continued to do all the instruction. One evening Elliot took up a machine & flew it round for ten minutes! When his dual control was finished he announced his intention of starting to instruct the next day. I knew that he had only flown the machine once & then for only ten minutes and said told him quite straight that it was'nt fair to any pupil to attempt to instruct him on a machine about which he (Elliot) knew nothing seeing that he had practically no experience with it. I told him that I would carry on with all the instruction for a few days until