On May 18, while returning to base, they were attacked by a group of FW’s and Leland shot down two of them.

“By the time you read this you will have known it for several weeks because the newspapermen were here again and perhaps as I sign my name here the story will be going into print in Port Smith. I became a double ace today—plus one, to bring my total credit to eleven. One of the reporters told me that my record is now among the top ten in the E.T.O., eighth or ninth—well behind the leaders, anyway. I have to tell you that although the reporters are good guys I am sick of their jobs. Do I sell newspapers? The new men coming in who want to meet me expect something that I am not. I tried to explain to you months ago. Billy and I have talked it over, and I do have to be something for these men. ‘He’s a man like me. If he can do it, so can I,’ is their attitude. That part would have been required of me, anyway, but in addition I have to show that the attention I am getting is a pleasant and worthwhile thing by itself. In the process the fact that human beings are dying is lost. I don’t like it and I do feel that the newspapers are greatly responsible. As you may have guessed, I have been in a kind of depression these past weeks, but now I have snapped out of it, I think. I am interested in my job again—this job. Somehow who I really am must become clear to these kids, or literally it will kill them. For the first time in my life I am forced to find words for myself—the opposite of ‘don’t think about it,’ that I used to say so much. I have to show that I can handle who I am and what I’ve done, and that I have an accurate perspective on the attendant and irrelevant nonsense. I used to think that a man grows up and that was that. But situations change and he is required to give something more or different and how much he gives is the measure of what he is. Today I told the papers exactly what happened in the air—that will confuse you until you read this. I’ve come to the conclusion that the more said about aerial combat, the better. I am still just trying to do my job, but now my job is different from what it was. What the professor said about my needing you was true. You knew it. I do need you, now more than ever.”