Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1917-09-11
A WORD FROM BEN MOLTER
In the Aviation Service in France
Fully Recovered From His Re-
cent Accident.

1
and Mrs. N. P. Molter of this city
has written letter to his sister, this
letter having lately been received. He
says.
eve have been under a terrible ac.
tion the past week; so intense with
the continual boom of the large cali.
Der guns that J. can hardly hear my.
self think. The activity is now sus.
| pended, owing to the rain and mud
Don't know which is the worst, the
cannonading or the mud. Both are
bad.
| / enclose one of the pamphlets we
dropped over the lines in the land oi
the "BOche." After the attack we flew
way back, twenty miles into the enc
my's country dropping them. (The
circular was President Wilson's peace
proclamation, printed in Germany
The attack is not over, far from it
We (the French) acted with the Brit
ish and gained our first objective
| Then it rained. Since then we have
been unable to do anything. Fate
| played nasty trick on us by raining
| The moment now is one of terrible
suspense, because we do not know
what the "Boche" are doing. We can
not fly over in the rain to see. They
may have large reinforcements, we
know not.
However, it is all in the game. |
have entirely recovered from my acci-
dent and was out over the lines last
night. Today it is raining again.
Give my love to all and if luck
should be against this brother of
yours, why, say prayer for him once
in a while
The accident of which Mr.. Molter
speaks happened about the middle of
July, while he was flying over the
German lines, alone. His motor stop
ped on him when at an elevation of
$4,000 feet, and he came down, land
ing in wheat field. His machine
turned over, his belt broke and he was
pitched out head first. His head was
pinned under the car and he could not
extricate himself He lost conscious
ness and did not revive until he was
on the way to the hospital. Friendly
soldiers saw him fall and rushed to
his rescue. His helmet saved him from
crushed skull and death. AS it was
he escaped with few cuts and two
black eyes. No bones were broken.
Mr.. Molter enclosed in his letter
clippings on the death of Julian Bid
die, fellow aviator, one of them,
from Paris, is as follows:
"The story of the tragic death of
Corporal Julian G. Biddle of Phila-
delphia, volunteer in the French
aviation service, has been told to me
by Corporal Bennett A. Molter, a Los
Angeles youth who flies with French
fighting squadron. Mr.. Molter writes:
Julian Biddle has been at the front
with the same outfit as poor Oliver
Chadwick. Julian was up on the
morning of Aug. Is, trying out his
Squad machine and getting acquaint-
ed with the country. He was flying
at high altitude over the ocean off
Dunkerque, when he was seen sud-
denly to drop, diving straight down in
to the water. Destroyers and other
boats Immediately went out after him,
but all they could find was the upper
wing of his plane. Poor Biddle was
strapped in his machine and went to
the bottom of the sea. No one knows
what caused the accident.
Julian was young flyer, who had
a good record. At the aviation school
he was out flying for his brevet two
weeks after he arrived His cousin,
Charles Biddle, is now at the front,
as is also Charles Maury Jones of New
York, Walter Rheno of Martha's Vine
yard, Mass, who recently came to the
front near where I am, destroyed a
German biplane on one of his first
flights over the lines, and has been
proposed for the war cross.
L have been on the go daily since
the weather improved. l am doing
protection work for Photographic
aeroplanes. We go from ten to twenty
kilometers, (six to twelve miles) along
the German trenches and back and see
plenty of hostile airmen.
so far we have managed to accom-
plish our missions well. We are or
dered only to protect photographers,
as pictures are of more value to the
army than the downing of German
machines. The anti-aircraft gunners
are annoying at times Seeing those
black and white balls of smoke sud
denly appear around you without
warning, makes you wonder where
the next one will be. We get an
awful lot of shelling over Fritz do
mains.'
Sergt. Walter Lowell of Boston
Mass, has been given brilliant cita-
tion in army orders for his excellent
work in general and for having shot
down and destroyed a German ma
chine Aug. 49,"
HEAVY STORM