The daily Gate City and constitution-Democrat. (Keokuk, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1918-10-19
keokuk Aviator Was Observer In First
Great Battle Under American
High Command In
World War.
HIS PLANE HIT OFTEN
Americans Carefully Coached, Did as
Weil as Veterans and as the
Eyes Of the Army Won
Many Enconiums.


! Van B. Hayden, Keokuk boy and
with the Mississippi River Power
company before he became an Off
Ger in the aviation corps of the
American army in France, helped
win the battle Of st. Mihiel, had his
airplane hit a dozen times by arches,
and writes about it all wildly to his
parents, Mr.. and Mrs. P. C. Hayden.
The letter. written only for the
family, but Communicated by The
Gate City, says:
Sunday, September Is, 1918.-As /
sit writing about It, you are reading
Americans, for the first time under
! Hun a beating which he will remem-
Der for some time. The plan of bat
tie went without q hitch from start
| to finish; the Boche were both sur
prised and whipped to standstill,
on the ground and In the air. About
$4,000 prisoners were taken by the
| two army corps, also many guns and
machine guns and lots of railroad
equipment and other material.
The Goth aero squadron played an
important part in the battle, and my
pilot and myself did our share in
good shape and without mishap. The
past week will stand out in my MEM
DRY always, and many things have
happened to me which are well worth
remembering. AS near as ! am al
lowed, I'll give you the account from
my standpoint of the doings of the
week.
Tension Before the Battle.
The big day, as you know, was
Thursday. From Monday on, we
knew about what was coming, and
had general idea that it would
break before the end of the week.
but exact information we did not
have, as that could not be given out
to anyone till the last minute. But
we knew enough to enable US to get
our maps in shape and study the
ground on the maps and brush up on
code and procedure. 1t rained steadi-
ly for the first three days of the
week, and we were kept on the
ground, thus giving us lots of time
to get our tools in shape. The OBJ
servers room was full all day long
and an air Of tenseness pervaded the
whole camp. The exact day and
hour was not known, and any to-
morrow might be it.
Practically none OF the observers
or pilots in our group had ever been
through an attack, and we all Won
dered, of course, what 1t would be
like, what we would see on the
ground, what the Boche would do In
the air, and numerous other things.
A French captain, who has been
through about thirty attacks, was at
tached to the group at the beginning
of the week, and he gave talks every
night and was in the observers room
ali day, telling us what to expect,
what to do under all circumstances,
and helping US in many ways with
information he had picked up over
the three years he has been in the
game.
Eight Aviators Missing.
We all studied his suggestions to-
eether, and the schedule was mace
I'M by the chief observer. The sched-
ule called for two flights per team
for the next day The major in COM
mand Of the group gave us a final
talk, and the French captain gave US
a final talk. The major said it was
no to us to show the people on the
ground that we were as good as they
were and would risk as much, and to
get the information back to corps
and division headquarters in good
shape.
I'VE shall fly tomorrow" he said
unless the rain is so hard that II
will break the propeller"
Thursday did not dawn bright ana
clear, as the saying goes, but rainy.
with low clouds, and we flew IN II
all day long-kept two planes over
the divisional front line fSom dawn
till dark, and brought in the dope.
tn the overwhelming satisfaction OF
the CORDS and divisional staff.
All three squadrons did good Work,
and the camp did not come out I'M
scathed. Out of the three squad
rons, eight men are missing, but the
Goth is still intact. One OF the Fort
Sill observers is gone. ! knew the
men in all four teams. The prop.
ability is that they got lost ana
landed in Germany or were shot
down by fire from the ground. Our
pursuit groups kept the German ma
chimes on the ground for the whole
first day.
Firing at Hun Batteries. :.
On Thursday morning, P1erson,
nv pilot, and I flew at 1880 O'Clock.
We took off in the rain and new
over toward the front at about 4oo
meters height, which is very 10"
flying. We flew up and down the
lines and over into German TERRITORY
al a height of about 300 meters mos.
of the time, through showers and
foo for an hour. We found how far
our men had advanced and saw that
the Germans were everywhere gong
back.
We noticed one German battery
hooked up and beating it for the
rear as fast as they could go across
field. 1t was good chance; SO
we went right down and straffea
them with machine guns. we couio