By January 1918, the Italian army had managed to establish a line along the Piave River, some 50 miles southwest of Udine. At that point Russia had collapsed, and Germany was able to move troops from that Eastern front to reinforce its armies in France and Belgium. The Western Front was stalemated, dug in and desperately awaiting promised American troops and supplies.

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At Foggia some 400 American aviation cadets plugged on through their exasperatingly slow training. On January 12 Lewis earned his First Brevet — one of a series of demanding flight requirements. He wrote Bert with obvious enthusiasm: [A] most wonderful day, air clear and windless….I had a machine all to myself all morning and had most of two hours in the air. I did my spiral exercises first, then my eights and then my 45 min. at an altitude of 1,200 meters [about 3,900 feet]….On the first series of eights the barograph came loose and I had to hold it under one arm and came down with only one hand to control the machine….Now I am an Italian Pilot and am in the Second Brevet line. The clumsy barograph used to create a paper record of altitude during each flight was normally worn around the pilot's neck. The strap had broken on this one, rendering Lewis a one-armed pilot perched in the icy slipstream with his other arm clamped on the barograph. His successful landing under those conditions was no mean feat.

In morning fog eight days later the unit suffered its first fatalities. Lieutenants William Cheney and Oliver Sherwood, flying together, collided with George A. Beach, and all three died. The following day an elaborate funeral service was held in Foggia. The American cadets marched with French and Italian troops, and respectful citizens silently lined the streets.

Through the next several weeks, Lewis completed his Second Brevet of exacting maneuvers and a raid — actually a 150-mile cross-country flight to Barletta, Bari, then back to Foggia. During a subsequent cross-country flight, his Farman's engine quit and he landed dead stick near a sheep farm.

Lewis' cadet contingent now moved into transitional training. In February the first Societ Italiana Aviazione S.I.A. 7B1 arrived — one of the 18 the United States had purchased for training purposes. Compared to the ungainly Farmans, the S.I.A. reconnaissance and light bombers were a step up. The 300-hp, two-place biplane was armed with two Revelli machine guns, one on a flexible mounting in the observer's rear cockpit, the other fixed in the center of the upper wing and fired forward. With a top speed of 120 mph, the S.I.A. had been flying in combat with 13 squadrons of the Italian army's air service. Its appearance at Foggia caused a sensation among the cadets, who were given a choice of flying the nimble S.I.A. 7B1 or Caproni heavy bombers. The Caproni had been on the scene for some weeks by then. Compared with the snappy-looking S.I.A., the Caproni resembled a lumbering elephant. A 72-foot-wingspan, four-place biplane bomber, it had three engines, triple rudders at the end of its twin booms and six landing wheels. Most of the high-spirited cadets understandably opted for S.I.A. service. For many, it was to be an ill-fated decision.

In mid-February additional Caproni bombers arrived for training use. Rain and a warm spell had melted the field's rare snow by that time and brought with it a swarm of flies. Architect Lewis found himself ordered by LaGuardia to supervise the making of screen doors and window screens for the camp — his first architectural commission. Lumber and screening had to be scouted up in Naples, and Lewis set out for that city on February 26. Scrounging materials and supervising their fabrication took two weeks. During the second week, on the morning of March 11, he was on hand for an Austrian air raid on Naples. He wrote of the incident: Two Zepps, 20 bombs dropped, 16 killed and 35 wounded. The next day he received word from Foggia that his commission had finally arrived. He had left the training camp with a rank equivalent to a private first class. He returned to be sworn in as a first lieutenant.

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