The labor standard., 1918-04-15
AVIATOR D0DGES
 HUNS F DAYS
Lieut.. Pat. 0'Brien of Illinois Tells of Wild Adventures in
 Germany.
JUMPS FROM MOVING TRAIN
American Strategy Triumphs Over German Effieiency-One of His Hardest Stunts Was Swimming
 River Mouse.

Chicago.-Pat O'Brien of Momence, Ill.,, is back from the fighting front.
 In the British flying corps the young man from Momence is known as Lieut.. Patrick Ava O'Brien. He is famous for several reasons. His real story be- gan when he made descent of nearly two miles in his airplane after Ger man bullet in the face had rendered him unconscious. The fall cost him bump on the head.
 He jumped out of the window of a moving train on his way to a German prison camp, and escaped. Then he spent 72 days in getting to Holland, a distance of 250 miles as the airplane flies. And the story ends with one of the longest interviews with a king on record-52 minutes by the royal stop watch.
 Many times during those 72 nights of travel through Germany, Luxembourg, and occupied Belgium, American strategy triu1nphed over German eff ciency.
 "USually," said Lieutenant O'Brien, "when a bunch of fellows get together, they talk about women. But in our first prison, in Flanders, we talked only about escape and food. and got very little of either. There were eight officers going to an interior prison camp, and guard with rife for ev- cry two prisoners.
 Leaps From Train.
 "We rode all day and all night. Twice I put up the window to jump and lost my nerve. It looked too much like sudden death. As I put it up again, about four fin the morning, the guard gave me an ugly look. I knew 1t was then or never and dove out.
 "For nearly month, afterward I thought my left eye was gone. The scars are there yet. By the time the train stopped, a half-mfle on, or more, was up and stumbled to hiding place. Those Germans looked every where-on the side of the tracks to ward the border. I was in the oppo- site direction.
 "It was month before got rid of my English uniform. I stole pair of overalls one night. got a. cap the next and shirt later, A Belgian gave nae a scarf. That was. all the help I got, ,<..
 As an appetizer lieutenant O'Brisn ate turnip. The entree was sugar beet, and the meal closed with a cabbage stump that even the Germans scorned. And I never did like vegetables" :" he said. tT hope never have to eat anOther."', s
 One night a German soldier saw him swimming a river, and raised the alarm. -...
 >"I felt sure they would be on top of me in few minutes" he said, "so I ran upstream and swan back to the other side. I knew the ways of the Hun pretty we'll by then. They looked everywhere on the other side, but not a German came near me.
 Swam the Mouse.
 "One of the hardest things did was to swim the Mouse river. I had all my clothes on, to my boots, and the river was half a mile across. It nearly got me twenty-five feet from shore. I was choking, and admit praying. My boyhood on the Kanka- kee saved my life.
 "When I got up the bank I tainted. It was the only time ever tainted"
 Lieutenant O'Brien could not speak German As boy, Momence baker of Teuton origin taught him a phrase of German, but he did not know what it meant. It was some ''ten lifetimes" after swimming the Mouse he found the nine-foot death fence of the Hol- land frontier. Death all but got him then, as his improvised ladder dropped him on the charged wires.
 "A few minutes later" he said, "I could have tripped the guard with my ladder. After he had gone dug-dug as never dug before in my life. My back was half an inch from death when