The Washington times., 1914-05-25
NAVY AV|ATORS IN
MEXICO EARNED FAME
"Pat"' BeIIinger and 'Diek"
SaufIey Charted Enemy's
Positions With Speed.
By WILLIAM G. SHEPHERD.

VERA CRUZ, Mexico. May 10 (By
mail to New York).-Heros schoo
room scene, twenty-five years from
now:
Teacher-Why is April %. 1914, ia
nous in American history?
Cp goes the hand OF every boy, wav.
ing wildly
Willie. you may answer
Willie-It's the day on which an aero.
plane was first used in an American
war.
Sammy. unable to keep SILENT
know more about it than that II
happened at Vera Cruz, Mexico, and Il
almost scared the MeIicans to death
Even the cows and horses ran away
from it and the people thought it was
a terrible animal and hid in their
houses
Jimmy, interrupting-I know who
hev it. His name was Pat BelIinger.
Teacher-No., ! Patrick y. /. Bel.
finger. OF Charleston, South Carolina
Not Pat.
willie-Thats it. And before he ever
flew in an aeroplane, he commanded a
submarine and once made a target rec
ord with a tvelve-inch gun from the
battleship South Carolina. He had
light eyes and he came from one Of the
best families in the South and he could
dance as well as he could fly and all
got married because so many girls
liked him that he didn't know which
enc to propose TO.
Teacher-Williei
aeroplane. Belfinger few 1t, but Dick
Saufley rode beside him and made a
chart Of all the territory around Vera
Cruz showing where bridges were
burned, tracks torn up and where some
Mexican soldiers that they new over
were throwing up entrenchments.
Teacher-His name wasn't Dick. His
title was Lieut.. Richard c. saufley, Oh
Kentucky.
American soldiers to use the aeroplane
in real warfare were Southerners. Class
Is adjourned.
These schoolboys will have been talk
ing of an event that delighted Amer
tcan refugees in Vera Cruz The hfst
hight of the navy seroplsne over vera
Cruz followed, by only two hours, the
arrival Of the machine on the battle
ship Mississippi. Lieutenant Command
er Henry c. Muslin, OF the Pensacola
IFIa) navy aviation station, put MS
mechanicians to work on Two Surtss
nydropIanes in the hangar on the deck
OF the gnu Ds lAS
feet arrived of Vera Cruz the nyinG
machines were ready for immediate use
They we're lowered over the side of the
ship by cranes, and they scudded across
the hsrbor to the beach under their
own power.
Within a short time Bellinger and
Saufey were in the air above the ships
and circling over the town. The aero
plane had a tremendous effect on the
natives OF Vera Cruz. Sharpshooting
from houses. which had occurred every
evening since the occupation, ceased
Immediately, as the rumor went abroad
among the Mexicans that the sviators
would drop q bomb on any house from
which sharpshooting occurred. In the
evening the same two aviators made
excursions far out into the country, re-
turning with maps which indicated TO
Admiral Fletcher the exact position OF
the enemy. showing the condition OF the
narrow and broad gauge railroad tracks
and bridges.
Admiral Fletcher highly complinented
the two aviators for the work. and or
dered the preparation of maps from the
neat charts which Saufiey had drawn in
the air. Saufey's charts will probably
End a place in one Of the army or navy
collections in the Washington museum.