His new status did not change LaGuardia's screen door and window mandate. Lewis was still installing them as his classmates began to receive combat assignments in March and April. In fact, he didn't extricate himself from the screen assignment until April 24, when he finally had his first ride in a Caproni bomber, a six-minute hop with an American instructor, Lieutenant Spencer Kerr. The next day Lewis himself flew the Caproni and made his first landings in the big bomber.

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By that time, the S.I.A. was acquiring a bad reputation. The upper wings of a number of planes had broken up in flight, resulting in the deaths of several Italian crews in an era when pilots did not wear parachutes. At Foggia, chief S.I.A. pilot Al Weatherhead had barely survived a 3,200-foot plunge after a stall. On March 24 U.S. Marine 2nd Lt. Jordan and Italian instructor Lieutenant Freddi side-slipped into a dive from which they could not recover. Freddi suffered deep cuts. Jordan suffered a broken arm and leg. Two days later, Jordan's leg was amputated, and the following day he died. A rumor swept the camp that American detachment commander Major Ryan had served notice he would not fly the S.I.A. On his own, LaGuardia suspended training in the aircraft — a move for which he was later taken to task — and concentrated on training his men in the big Capronis.

On May 27 Lewis recorded that he went solo on Caproni after 16th lesson. He wrote Bert: My, but it's some wonderful piece of machinery….The instructor asked me if I thought I could take her around without smashing up….On went the throttles and I was in the air alone, made a 'giro' as we call a tour and landed like a bird. What he didn't tell her was that on that same day, Memorial Day, the detachment had held a ceremony in the main hangar honoring the six cadets who had been killed since January.

On June 15 the first Caproni squadron of 20 graduates left for combat assignments. Five days later, the second squadron left for Rome, then the Italian Front. Still enmeshed in the fly screen project, Lewis wrote, my hope is to finish with the Third Squadron, though he'd heard LaGuardia had a new architectural assignment in mind.

A month later he wrote: I am all finished with my training at Foggia, ready for the Front. News from [Harold R.] Harris that we may go to France. The next day, he added, Received orders from LaGuardia to report to Milan.

By now, LaGuardia was acting as chief of air services, U.S. Army, in Italy. Headquartered in Milan near the Caproni factory, he was coordinating the U.S. procurement and dispatch of Caproni aircraft. Production had fallen behind demand, and a new factory was to be built in Genoa. LaGuardia, ever ready to tap Lewis' architectural expertise, ordered him to Milan to review the plant's layout.

Lewis wrote: Very happy with prospects of leaving Foggia….Harris and Kerr are going also — to fly [a Ca.5] to France. On July 16, Lewis reported to the Caproni factory in Milan, reviewed floor space requirements, then went to Genoa to present my one-day design to Capt. LaGuardia. He wrote Bert, Am head over heels in the biggest job I ever encountered and it's mighty interesting. That job lasted only one day. Lewis returned to Milan with new orders as second pilot on one of three new Caproni 600s — Ca.5s with three Fiat A-14 200-hp engines — to initiate a cross-Alps bomber ferry route to France.

For its Dunkirk-based Northern Bombing Group, the U.S. Navy had purchased 17 new Fiat-powered Caproni bombers. Rather than crate subassemblies for rail shipment to France, the Navy decided the Ca.5s could be flown there. The ferry flights would be made in three stages: from the factory in Milan to Turin at the eastern foot of the formidable western Alps, then across that towering mountain range to Lyon, and finally on to Orly airfield in Paris.

Most of the Northern Bombing Group's pilots had been trained in seaplanes and had no experience with large landplanes. The Navy necessarily called on the Caproni-trained Foggiani pilots for the history-making Alpine ferry project.

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