Perth Amboy evening news., 1918-08-06
GIINPER TALK DIRECT
FROM OR CAMP

and keep straight ahead until you
pass them. Usually, the Germans are
willing to do that, too. unless you at
Jack them. But a gimper never lets
himself fail to see them. He maneu-
vers around until he can ptque on
them and let them have 1t, until they
run home. Then he's satisfied he's a
gimper."
"All gimpers have to live up TO the
idea of the squadron emblem" ex-
planned the lieutenant Every man
has a picture Of a hat in a ring on his
machine. That he is ready to fight
any time, whether Heinie wants to or
not The squadron Is sometimes
known as the hat-in-the-ring squad
ron. But among ourselves it's gimp
ers. We adopted the hat-in-the-ring
as our emblem bach In our training
days. Then 1t was our hope to be the
first lighting squadron to get TO the
front.
"Our commanding officer, who had
flown with the French, used to have
a hat as the emblem OF his machine.
Someone suggested that we take the
hat, but put a ring around 1t, carrying
out the idea of ex-President Roose-
velts famous statement, that We were
ready to fight any time.
For q long time we could say moth
ing of the emblem. but finally a couple
of the boys were forced down In Ger
many I can't say we noticed any diff
ference in the way the German flyers
treated us, for they never did have h
say as to whether we would fight or
not. We always have had to carry out
the hat-in-the-ring idea and go after
them.
Dough. Campbell added the finish
ing touch to the hat-in-the ring
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 ike
the ones you see or German planes be-
fore you let them have 1t.
you want to look at Doug's collec-
ton 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
barely a quarter of the way across the
ring. This is Doug's 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, n
he's made them small.
1.-THE rest of the boys are now put
ting crosses In the rings as soon as
they land Germans and we're getting
quite a collection Of black iron crosses
In the gimper squadron. For holes
made by German shells in our planes
we also use crosses, provided the
holes are Of large enough size. Small
ones are too common to count. But
big ones are patched and a black
cross is painted over the patch.
mot a few of the gimpers put
other pictures on the planes by way of
inspiration. ! think the best stunt was
that OF a gimper who pasted Howard
Chandler Christy's war roster of the
Liberty Girl on the lower wing of the
machine, where he could always see
II. The poster has the words: Buy
Liberty Bonds or Fight for Her.
Which will you dor
"As the gimper explained to us, 1t
inspired him to fight. I see a Boche
up there and then always look at the
girl on the wing he says 1t says buy
bonds or fight. / haven't any money
and couldn't buy a bond up there II I
wanted to. So there's nothing to do
but tght. That's the way the girl in
spires 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 a fight. The
idea was a happy one, and II mas had
q lot to do with the right kind Of
spirit and enthusiasm. and it's worked
wonders when we got into lights with
Huns"