Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1918-10-04

diately began to cite instances OF
just such an aecident-with q tragic
ending Cheerful WASN'T 1t?
Parles rous Yanitese7
According te them, / was indeed
lucky to escape with nothing lost but
the propeller, as In many eases the
flying propeller struck d wing AS 1t
came of and then everything came
down LII u heap, One F'renchmaii
said he had seen, Ave Americans
killed at Verdun In just that way.
How much of this talk was TRUE
I had no way of knowing, but los
ing a propeller was d new expert
sassa snes fer y, ne' In fact sa haa rnm rarely
had not spoken two words before
some Frenchmen said In excellent
English You're an American. aren't
YOU" admitted tho honor ind
then wanted to know where he had
learned my language, It seemed
he had lived In San Francisco O num-
Der OF yearb, From his conversa-
ton tho, he must have passed thru
Utah too, because he had acquired
norman viewpoint som nowhere.
He admitted he had two wives al
In Paris, and * they moved him to
another country, say italy, no might
acquire another one, as it was easier
to marry another than pay tho ex-
ponBes OF carrying the ono he al
ready had with him. He was on
urely too much Of u free thinker,
or should I aay free ncter7 for mo,
and discovered another Frenchman
who talked English felt my Nor
mon Interpreter. This second
Frenehmnn was In charge of the
telephone bureau there, which was
very fortunate for me as 1t made
communication with my escadrille
Very easy
Fms In French
sometimes, you know, when we go
ZEN panpe" we are far from tele-
phone communication and then we
have to go by the foot express" to
hunt one, as the esoodrille must he
informed as quickly as possible
where their pilote has landed,
whether his plane Is damaged and
whether he Is hurt. I had not
broken anything in landing, so of
course, had not been hurt, and soon
had the escadrille on the wire.
They promised to send a car for me
right away. Meanwhile, all I could
to do or see of importance I spent
sometime talking French with the
English speaking Frenchman. It's
markable how little the infantry
know of their own air service, and I
was asked innumerable fool ques-
tions such as would the plane hold
two people, when only one cochpit
was in evidence, and did I shoot the
two guns fixed on the motor as
we'll as fly? And as for landing an
airplane without the propeller and
part of the motor and not break
ing anything on landing at that,
even tho the country was covered
with shell holes, they thought that
was wonderful. one admirer even go
ing so far as to say I should have
Croix dc Guerre' for it, which
made laugh as that was all in the
days work. So l told him. but
that was stretching it little, be-
cause I'd hate to come down in q
place like that every day. My luck
would not hold that long.
Among Hun Prisoners
Having landed fairly close to those
tents I spoke of 1 wanted to know
what species of soldiers inhabited
them' and had the surprise of my
life on being told they were Cor
this Kultured animal before I want.
ed to have a look, and with the
English-speaking Mormon as guide
got a real close one. He explained
many things l wanted to know about
them, but [ won't put it down here
for fear the censor will ruin the
letter. as a letter just came from
you today saying that the censor
had begun working on one of my
letters.
When had tired looking at the
! prisoners and hearing of their habits
1 walked back thru the small village
nearby. There was not much lef
Of the town. It was simply knocked
| fiat.
Some Shell Fire
My car had not arrived yet and a.
! it was growing dark the Frenchmer
kindly offered me some supper. Ter
O'Clock came and still no car; so they
kindly gave me a bed, and with one
blanket for comfort and flies fol
| companions I tried to sleep, but the
flies were too inquisitive and would
, notSallow it. Honestly, 1 never saw
so many flies! l thought there were
lot here, but It was not a star
to what were in that small room
1 said they were inquisitive but after
several minutes I changed my mind
l was wrong, they were practising
landings on my nose, and consider
ing how smooth and shiny the sur
face of that organ is they were max
ing many bad ones. Many over.
shot the 'piste" and landed in my
eye, or rolled down the side of my
nose and into my mouth. What
with my face being used for such
a grand scale aviation meet, you
can believe I got little sleep. Fin
ally gave 1t up. Anyway, many in
teresting things were happening just
then because the French were max.
ing an attack and the big guns were
singing quite q tune. Every once in
q while the whistle of a Boche shell
could be heard as he came tearine
over and exploded some distance
away. And do you know, those
Frenchmen could tell by the sound
of the explosion just what kind of q
shell it was. I remember one COM