Casper Daily Tribune Newspaper, October 23, 1918, Page 6

as 2 ai esesd tie esses Peres ee ee ees By'LIEUTENANT PAT Fightins the Hu O'BRIEN Flying maneuvers most frequently. used by allied aviators in their,'combats with enemy fliers, including the “O'BRIEN “LOOP” INTRODUCTION ing sat a German guard with gun loaded, ready to shoot. The compartment was so e train going so fast— American nothing seemed impossible—and as the train flew, he swung himself up, and—before anybody knew what was going to happen—out of the window! He was terribly wounded—he had to cover his wounds with his coat so that his blood would not lead the enemy on his trail. And that was just the beginning of 72 days of fearful ad- venture—of hiding by day and slipping by night—of boldly walk- ing past sentries—of starvation—of swimming of rivers—of ter- ror and despair—and of iron nerve. Read this true story—such a story as has never before come out of the war—the story of Lieutenant Pat O’Brien—that dar- ae iene pea ee ieee EEE le ERE RTE LM, corps, in this paper. tt would have been death to any other man was to him its he was a prisoner of the Germans—but they couldn't hold him. Today his story is listened to breathle: States. The Dutch gave him an ovation—the English went wild over can have the whole stery. +e eee HHH Hee HH HHH HH HF CHAPTER I. The Folly of Despair Less than nine months ago 18 officers of the Royal Flying corp hich had been training in Canada, left for England on the Meganic. If any of them was over 25 years of age, he had successfully con- ealed the fact, because they don’t accept older men for the R. F. C. wpreeers The little German compartment train—taking him at fly- * speed into the heart of the German prison camp. Next to him * the whole thing seemed so impossible. Yet to this daring young * ing, dark and agile Irish-American who flew in the Royal Flying * | feet, and scouts a thousand feet or so} ‘* a great and glorious adventure. */ above them, | i icago—he joi val Flving corps If at any time they should be at-| He was born in Chicag . joined the Ros * nme cor # | tacked, it is the duty of the scouts to! sly all over the United * him. The king of England received him with joy. And now you * ‘breeches, and the sight aroused con-| siderable commotion in camp. | “Must be a Yankee!” I overheard | one officer say to another as I ap-| proached. “No one but a Yankee! % would have the cheek to show up that | way, you know!” | But they laughed good-naturedly | as I came up to them, and welcomed % me to the squadron and I was soon) | very much at home. } My squadron was one of the four) *'stationed at an airdrome about 18) * miles back of the Ypres line. There | | were 18 pilots in our squadron, which | was a scout squadron, scout ma-| * chines carrying but one man. *)| A scout, sometimes called a fight!n’ | | scout, has no bomb dropping or recon | Nnoltering to do. His duty is just to fight, or, as the order was given to me, | *| “You are expected to pick fights and %| not wait until they come to you!" When bomb droppers go out over the lines in the daytime a scout squad- ¥'/.ron usually convoys them. The bomb x» | droppers fly at about twelve thousand dive down and carry on the fight, the} orders of the bomb droppers being to go on dropping bombs and not to fight % unless they have to. There is seldom a time that machines go out over the! lines on this work in the daytime that * | they are not attacked at some time or | % other, and so the scouts usually have | plenty of work to do. In addition to} these attacks, however, the squadron is invariably under constant bombard- ment from the ground, but that doesn’t | worry us very much, as we know pret- ty well how to avoid being bit from | that quarter. | | On my first filght, after joining the) Ss | from hostile machines, France are controlled in two ways, Both by hafds and feet, the feet! working the yoke or rudder bar| which controls the rudder; that steers the machine. The lateral controls! fore and aft, which cause the ma- chine to rise or lower, are controlied| by a contrivance called a “joy stick.”) If, when fiying in the alr, a pilot] should release his hold ov this stick,| it will gradually come toward the| pilot. In that position the machine will begin to climb, So if a pilot is shot) and loses control of this “joy stick,”) his machine begins to ascend, andj) climbs until the angle formed be-) comes too great for it to continue or) the motor to pull the plane; for a| Zraction of a second it stops, and the! motor then being the heaviest, it} causes the nose of the machine to fall| | | forward, pitching down at a terrific) rate of speed and spinning at the} same time. Jf the motor is still run-| ning, it naturally increases the speed much more than it would if the mo- tor were shut off, and there is great! danger that the wings will double up| enusing the nucfene to break apart. Although spins are’ toade with the motor on, you are dropping Ike a ball veing dropped out of the sky and the velocity increuses with the power of the motor, This spinning nose dive has been | frequently used in “stunt” flying io recent years, but is now pat to prac- | tieal use by pilots in getting away for when a} man is spinning it is almost impos- sible to hit him, and the man making | the attack Invariably thinks his en- emy is golng down to certain death | in the spin. | This is all right when a man fs/ | squadron, I was taken out over the)over his own territory, because he | | lines to get a look at things, map out! can ‘right his machine~and come out | (oer See Cee oe eee oP Pe oe ee Se peace % Americans, who, tired of waiting ™ blace with the allies, had joined the Py British colors in Canda. I was one D of the latter. * We were going to England to earn Sur “wings’—a qualification which fnust be won before a member of the i. F. C. is allowed to hunt the Huns on the western front. I This was in-May, 1917. 4 By August 1, most of us were full-fledged pilots, actively engaged various parts of the line in daily Sonflict with the enemy. * By December 15, every man jack pf us who had met the enemy in i“rance, with one exception, had ap- peared on the casualty list. The ex- eption was H. K. Boysen, an Ameri- ein, who at last report was fighting ‘on. the Italian front still unscathed. Whether his good fortune has stood ‘aim up to this time I don’t know, but ‘fit has I would be very much sur- 1 orised. y * Of the others, five were killed in ipetion—three Americans, one Ca- ‘aadian, and one Englishman. Three iJnore ‘were in all probability killed ‘an action altho officially they are list- ” + “ for their own country to take her CHAPTER II. J Became a Fighting Scout I started to flying in Chicago in| ever wounded and had the strength to/ cloud, and is used very often by both 1912. I was then 18 years old, but T had had a hankering for the air ever since I can remember. As a youngster I followed the ex- polits of the Wrights with the great- est interest, altho I must confess I} sometimes hoped that they wouldn’t really conquer the air until I had had a whack at it myself. I got more whacks than I was looking for later on. Needless to say, my parents were very much opposed to my risking my life at what was undoubtedly at that time one of the most hazardous “‘pas- times” a young fellow could select, and every time I had a smashup or some other mishap I was ordered nev- er to go to an aviation fie!d again. Then followed my enlistment, the trip to Canada and thence overseas where we were all sent to a place in France known as the Poo! Pilots Mess. Here men gather from all the train- ling squadrons in Canada and Eng- igd merey as “missing.” One of these was an American, one a Canadian,| ‘und the third a Scotchman. Three} sore, two of them Americans, were| seriously wounded. Another, a Ca-| “hadian, is a prisoner in Germany. I ‘snow nothing of the others. ') What happened to me is narrated| ‘nm these pages, written after my re- ‘Surn to Momence, Ill, where I was orn, not much the worse for wear Jfter all I have been thru, and as I write these lines not eight months| have passed since my 17 comrades pnd I sailed from Canada on the) Meganic. { "*” Can it be possible that I was spared «0 convey a message of hope to oth- ‘prs who are destined for similar erials? I am afraid there will he} many of them. | 4 Years ago I heard of the epitaph, SUES ES ERE E EO ES REED SESE OS CECE ES Fran] aI os | land and await assignments to the particular squadron of which they are to become members. The Pool Pilots Mess is situated e few miles back of the lines. When- ever a pilot is shot down or killed the Pool Pilots Mess is notified tc send another to take his,place. There are so many casualties ev. ery day in the R. F. C. at one point of the front or another that the de- mand for new pilots is quite active but when a fellow is itching to ge‘ into the fight as badly as I and my friends were I must confess that wc got a little impatient, altho we re- alized that every time a new man war called it meant that some one els¢ had, in all probability, been killed ‘wounded or captured. One morning an order came in foi a scout pilot and one of my friend: was assigned. I can tell you the Nine of the squadron were British subjects; the other nine were! my location in case I was ever lost,|of it; but if it happens over German | | locate the forests, lakes and other| | landmarks and get the general lay of | the land. One thing that was impresséd upon | me very emphatically was the location of the hospitals, so that in case I was | pick my landing I could land es near) | as possible to a hospital. All these | | things a new pilot goes through dur-| | Ing the first two or three days after | | joining a squadron, Our regulur routine was two fights | a day, each of two hours’ duration. | After doing our regular patrol, it was our privilege to go off on our own ho if we wished, before going back -to! the squadron. } I soon found out that my squadron | | Was some hot squadron, our flyers be- ing almost always assigned to special duty work, such as shooting up} trenches at a height of fifty feet from the ground. I received my, baptism into this king of work the third time I went out over the lines, and. I would recommend 11 to anyone who is hankering for excite- ment... You are not only apt to be at-| tacked by hostile aircraft from above. but you are swept by machine-gun fire | from below. | I have seen some of our} sometimes so riddled with bullets that I wondered how they ever held to-| gether. Before we started out on one of these jobs, we were mighty chreful to see that our motors were in perfect! condition, because they told us the/ “war bread was bad in Germany.” One morning, shortly after I joined the squadron, three of us started over the line of our own accord. We soon observed four enemy machines, two- seaters, coming toward us. This type! of machine is used by the Huns for} artillery work and bomb dropping, and | we knew they were on mischief bent. | Each machine had a machine gun in| front, worked by the pilot, and the ob server also had a gun with which he/ could spray all around. When we first noticed the Huns, our machines were about six miles back| of the German lines and we were lying | high up in the sky, keeping the sun/ | with the motor full on. He is going | wings, and they consequently crumple machines come back from this work |™ territory, the Huns would only follow | him down, and when he came out of the spin they would “be nbove him, having all the advantage, and would shoot him down with pase. It Is a good way of getting down into a sides, but it requires skill and cour- age by the pilot making it if he ever expects to come out alive. A spin being made by a pilot intentionally | looks exactly like a splh that is nihde by a machine acthaliy ‘being shot down, so one never knows whether it is forced or intentional until the pilot either rights his machine and comes out of it, or crashes tovthe ground. Another dive similar to this one is known as just the plain dive. As- sume, for instance, that,a pilot flying at a height of several ‘thousand feet is shot, loses control of his machine, and the nose of the plane starts down at a.tremendous speed.and in many ‘nstances is golng so; straight and swiftly that the speed is too great for the machine, because it was never constructed to withstand the enor- mous pressure Yorced against the Pp. If, too, in an attempt to straighten the machine, the elevators should be- come affected, as often happens in trying to bring a machine out of a dive, the strain is agai too great on the wings, and there is the same dis- | astrous result. Oftentimes, when the | patrol tank is punctured by a tracer bullet from another machine in the | air, the plane that is hit catches on; fire and either gets into a spin or a straight dive and heads for the earth. hundreds of miles an hour, a mass of flame, looking Uke a brilliant comet in the sky. The spinning nose dive is used to greater advantage by. the Germans than by our own pilots:-for the reason | that when a fight gets too hot for the ¢ German, he will put his machine in | a spin, and as the chances are cama’ | out of ten that we are fighting over! German territory, he” simply spins | down out of our range, straightens | | O’Brien Standing Beside the First Machine in Which He Saw Active Service. | Era | Ic~otten Happens that a pilot win ‘be chasing another machine: whe | suddenlyehe sees it start to spin. Per- \haps they are fifteen or eighteen thou- sand feet in the air, and the hostile | machipe spins down for thousands of feet. He thinks he has hit the other | machine and goes home happy that he has brought Gown another Hun. He reports the occurrence to the squadron, telling how he shot down to cross the lines at a Ipw altituie, fly. Ing 80 near the ground that the man | with the antiaireraft gun can't bother you. You fly along until you get to the level of the balloon and if, in the ; meantime, they have not drawn the balloon down, you open fire on it and the bullets you use will set it on fire if they land. ‘The other way Is to fly over where you know the balloons to be, put your machine in a spin so that they can’t hit you, get above them, spin over the balloon and then open fire. In going ‘atk over the line you cross at a few hundred feet. This is one of the hardest jobs in | the service. There is less danger in | attacking an enemy’s aircraft. Nevertheless, I had made up my mind to either get those balloons or make them descend, and I only hoped | that’ they would stuy on the Job until I had a chance at them. When our two hours’ duty was up, therefore, I dropped out of the forma- ] tion as we crossed the lines and turned back again. 5 I was at a height of 15,000 feet, con- sidefably higher than the balloons, Shutting my motor off, J dropped down through the clonds, thinking to find the balloons at about five or six miles behind: the German lines. Just as I came out of the cloud banks I saw below me, about a thou- sand feet, a two-seater hostile mn- chine doing artillery observation and directing the German guns. This was at a polnt about four miles behind the German lines, Evidently the German artillery saw me and put out ground signals to at- tract the Hun machine's attention, for i saw the observer quit his work and grab his gun, while their pilot stuck the nose of his machine straight down. But they were too late to escape me. 1 I was diving toward them at a speed \hts enemy; but when the rest of the squadron come in with their report, or..some artillery observation balloon « sends in a report, it develops that When a few hundred feet from the ground the supposed dead man In the spin Bas come out of the spin and gene merrily on his way for his alr- drome, (To Be Continued) Co f By the ” rozs Announcement RICHARDS & CUNNINGHAM CO. FURS will be displayed at our store svlich is said to have been found on/rest of us were as envious of him th child’s grave: as if it were the last chance any of behind us, so that the enemy could not out before he reaches the ground, and | see us. ° | gets on home to his airdrome.. It is | We picked out three of the machines | )... } andl Anve Aitentan dient: useless ta folloy him down inside the | “ -If I was so soon to be done for \us were ever going to have to get at » |What, O Lord, was I ever begun for?” | the front. As it was, however, hard = | The way it has come to me since!ly more than three hours had elapsec 5 returned from Europe is: |before another wire was received at ~ ‘What were my sufferings e’er begun [the mess and I was ordered to follow ba 4 for?” Bde |my friend. I afterward learned that ~ Perhaps the answer lies in the sug-|as soon as he arrived at the squad- ® ‘xestion I have made. |ron he prevailed upon the command- ° At any rate, if this record of my ing officer of the squadron to wire} . jadventures should prove instrumental for me. ~ j[m-sustaining others who need en-| At the Pool Pilots’ Mess it was * goaragement, I shall feel that my suf-|the custom of the officers to wear| = ferings were not in vain. “shorts’J—breeches that are about + {It is hardly likely that anyone wil.|eight inches long, like the boy scouts = quite duplicate my experiences, but|/wear, leaving a space of about eight « J haven't the slightest doubt that|inches of open country between the any will have to go thru trials =qually nerve-racking and suffer dis- Appointment just as disheartening. It would be very far from the ark to imagine that the optimism | which I am preaching now so glibly! | gustained me thru all my troubles. | ‘ess that I frequently gave way to {Qn the contrary, ‘I am free to con-/clothes. top of the puttees and the end of the shorts. The Australians wore {then in Saloniki and at the Darda- nelles. When the order came in for me, I had these “sorts” on, and I didn’t have time to change into other Indeed, I was in such a sweat to get to the front that if J Qespair and often, for hours at a|had been in my pajamas I think I sime, felt so dejected and discouraged |would have gone that way. As it ‘hat I really didn’t care what hap-|was, it was raining and I threw an wened to me. Indeed, I rather hoped {overcoat over me, jumped into the “kat something would happen to put/machine and we made record time hn end to my misery. |to the airdrome to which I had been % But despite all my despondency ordered to report. vand hopelessness, the’ jworst mever| As I alighted from the automobile #appened, and I can’t help thinking )my overcoat blew open and display- * that my salvation must have beenjed my manly form attired in “shorts” | out of it. I went right by the man I picked for myself and) his observer in the rear seat kept} pumping at me to beat the band. Not) one of my shots took effect as I went right down under him, but I turned and gave him another burst of bullets, | and down he went in a spinning nose dive, one of his wings going one way and one another. As I saw him crash to the ground I knew that I had got my | first hostile aircraft. One of my com- rades was equally successful, but the other two Germaa machines got away. | We chased them back until things got | too hot for us by reason of the appear- ance of other German machines, and then We called it a day. ‘This experience whetted my appetite | for more of the same kind, and I did} not have long to wait. It may be well to explain here just what a spinning nose bend is. A few years ago the spinning nose dive was considered one of the things a pilot could attempt, and many men were killed getting into this spin snd not knowing how to come In fact, lots of pilots) thought that when once you got into a spinning nose dive there was no, way of coming out of it. It is now used, however, in actual fiying. | most dangerous esigned to show the way to others. instead of in the regulation flying The machines that are. used ip | Kimball Bldg. 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