The Delta independent., 1918-08-16
LIEUTENANT RlcKENBAckER
CONTINUES GlMPER TALK

July 10, (By MaiD-"All gimpers have
to live up to the idea of the squadron
emblem" explained Lieut.. Eddie Rick
enbacker, all-American ace and former
auto race driver.
Every man has picture of a hat
in ring on his machine. That means
he is ready to fight at any time,
whether he wants to or not. The
squadron is sometimes known as the
hat-in- -the-ring squadron. But among
ourselver it's gimpers. We adopted
the hat-in-the-ring as our. emblem back
! in our tr;ining days. Then it was our
hope to be the first fighting squadron
to get to the front.
Our commanding officer, who had
flown with the French, used to have a
hat as the emblem on his machine.
Some one suggested that we take the
hat, but put ring around it, carry
ing out the idea of ex-President Roose-
velts famous statement that we were
ready to fight at any time.
THE hat we had in mind was a
derby, but some one suggested while
we were discussing the emblem that it
be made an Uncle Sans hat with
stars and stripes on it. The idea was
gimper itself and we soon designed
an Uncle Sans hat in ring of red,
white and blue on each machine
For long time we could say no.
couple of boys we're fo0ced down in
germany. / can't say we noticed any
difference in the way the german fly
ers treated us, for they never did
have the say as to whether we would
fight or not. We have always had to
carry out the hat-in-the-ring idea and
go after them.
Doug Campbell added the finish.
ing touch to the hat-in-the-ring en-
blem when he got his fifth hun and
became the first all-American trained
ace. Somewhere. he scared up a paint
brush and painted a little black cross
in the ring around the hat, for each
german he had brought down. They
were regular german crosses, just like
the ones you see on a german plane
before you let them have it,
You want to look at Doug's collec-
tion of crosses. He started them in
one end of the ring and made them
real small. There are now seven of
them in the ring, but they stretch bare
ly a quarter of the way across the
ring. That is Dougs quiet way of
showing his confidence in getting a
lot of boches before the war is over
Doug wants to have room for all the
crosses necessary across the ring, so
he's made them small.
The rest of the boys are now put
ting crosses in the rings as soon as
they land german and we are get
ting quite a collection of black iron
crosses in the gimper squadron. For
holes made by the german shells in
our planes we also make crosses pro-
vided the holes are of large enough
size. Some of the smaller ones are
too common. but the larger ones can
be patched with big cross.
Not few OF the gimpers put other
pictures on the planes by way OF in
spiration. / think the best stunt was
that of gimper who pasted Howard
Chandler Christy's war poster Of the
Liberty Girl on the lower wing of the
machine, where he could always see 1t.
The poster has the words. Buy Liberty
Bonds or fight for Her. Which will
you do?' n
LAS the gimper explained to US, it
inspired him to fight. 4 see a boche
up there and then always look at the
girl ON the wing he said. 1t says
buy bonds or fight. | haven't any
money and couldn't buy bond up
there if wanted to, SO there's nothing
to do but fight. That's the way the
girl inspires me-
We've been out here. long enough
now to know that the gimpers will
live up to the hat-in-the-ring idea, and
they never run away from fight.
The idea was happy one and 1t has
had lot to do with the morale of the
squadron. The gimpers started out
with the right kind of spirit and en-
thusiasm and it's worked wonders
| when we into fights with the hun y
Copyright, 1918, by United Press)
With the American Airmen In
France-"We'd better translate some
of this gimper talk into honest-to-gosh
American, or the United Prcss read
ers won't be able to stop It," observed
Lieut.. Eddie Rickenbacker, American
ace and former auto racer, as he be
gan some "gimper talk" which Is the
aviation word for slang
Wen start out with the rudiments
OF the aviators' language" said Rick
enbacker 1T completely ignores the
study OF grammatical formations. The
only formations we know are aero
formations, which is group flying.
First of all, there's an airplnnc
With uB il is never an alrDlane-it'a r