Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-04-09

iioH WueH % y ClOth Cuuc ulOuS.
"lcs,' said Eddie, after talking Of some
OF his experiences in the air, "there were
some queer things happened. You hear lot
about the flying men. but not so much about
the balloon observers, who have mighty
dangerous job It's not much fun to be in
one of those balloons and get shot up. The
balloon catches fire, and il you don't step
OF IN your parachute quickly enough, the
burning envelope comes down on you and
you're done for. l saw that happen twice,
once to u Hun and. once to one of our own
men.
In the st. Mihiel drive one of our cable
balloons was sent up in a valley to direct
heavy artillery fire on Contains, about twen-
ty miles away. There were two observers
in it. In some way the balloon came afoul
of cliff on one side of the valley. the cable
was broken and one of the parachutes was
torn off AS there was only one parachute
left, neither of the boys would use it.
They stuck together and the balloon drifted
along with the wind. Finally they came to
earth at the very town of Contains, where
they were welcomed by Fritz. When they
felt their own stuff coming over good and
plenty they were sorry they had been so
accurate in registering those guns"
Jim Hall, ono of theS finest fiiers in our
squadron, had damn narrow escape" said
Eddie. I'VE were out on an alerte one
morning near Pont- a Mousson and saw four
Hun planes below us. We dived, fred
hundred rounds at my man, and saw the
boche 60 into tail spin. Just then an
other boche came down on my tail from be-
hind. i was scared to death and zoomed up
in hurry. When had time to look around
again / saw Hall gliding gently over wood
and landing in German territory. He had
had wing trouble-the Nieuport had a bad
habit of shedding the fabric off its upper
wings on a long dive-and not only that,
an Archie shell had hit his motor squarely,
dislodging a cylinder. Happily it was
dud if it had exploded he'd have been
blown to bits. He broke his ankle when
he landed, was captured by the same Huns
we'd been fighting with and lunchcd at their
mess"
We asked Captain Rickcnbacker whether
two aces on opposing sides would single each
other out for personal combat, trying time
after time to get the better of each other.
''The funny part of it was,'' he said,
that when two really good men met in the
air they rarely fought long. You know you
can tell ia a minute, by watching man
maneuver, whethe- he's any good or not.
Sometimes I've tried for an hour to get n
on his tail, and couldn't do 1t. You see,
your gun is rigid; you can only fire the way
the plane is pointed Two really skillful
aiers would take twirl around each other
and then see that neither of them could
draw bead on the other. So they would
pull off and try for better luck elsewhere. 4
In such unassLming fashion. we suppose
the knights Of the middle ages may have
discussed their jousts and Journeys.
VI H
Frank Woolworth began his climb to fame
by borrowing fifty bones from his landlady
in Lancaster, We have long been looking
for landlady, like that.
We do not believe II is necessary to
| assume that the hurried voyage Of the
| George Washington means diplomatic catas-
| trophies in Paris, Our hunch is that the
| vessel is loaded with the palm beach suits OF
| the American delegation, which will enable
! them to carry on all summer.
Or perhaps she is carrying Easter bonocts
| for the American stcnographcrs Mt the Hotel
+ Crillon?
| or 4 fresh supply Of outline pills for Rear
| Admiral Graysons medicine chest2
or batch 1T symbolic fried oysters fo1'
( Celonti House. 6sfore the n3uie biyslve goes
qpt n Psd9op r. NV J sQqR A1Ea