"LUCKIEST MAN IN THE WAR"

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 255, 23 July 1919, Page 8

"LUCKIEST MAN IN THE WAR"

YANKEE AIRMAN'S ESCAPES.

I, "The luckiest man in the war" is i ' Lieutenant Waldo H. Heinrichs, late of : the United States Ninety-fifth Aero I Squadron, the first of the American flyf ing squadrons to take the air against | Germany. That judgment is not made : from the.-viewpoint of the men who gets his thrills from a newspaper, says the , Baltimore "Sun," nor , even, from t.hc ! viewpoint of the (lougli-hoy or the sailor who risked his neck on the liifrh seas, or under them. Lieutenant Ileinricli's claim ! fy. the title of luckiest is based on "the ! testimony of the luckiest bunch of fighters that evor faced the Hun. the convbat j aviators of the Allies, whether British, j Italian, or American." ' Tho' luckiest aviatoT recently arrived j in this country from France: before that •he had spent two,months in a prison hosI pital -in-Mek. .He was in tho same fight ' in,-which Lieutennnt Quentin Roosevelt i wa? killed, and . his own Toom-mate, j Lieutennnt William H. Taylor, was kill- !-„ ed the dav after Hoinrichs was.shot down. r~' Here aro some of the things that hap- | 1 pened to Heinrichs-.-i Dodged splinters from propeller, which was torn completely off when he was flyI . ing at full speed at height of 1500 feet, ; landing without a scratch. ' Fell a mile in 'plane from which most ; " of top wing had been stripped in colli- ! sion with Ifu.n ho was fighting, but land- ! Ed right side up. Turned a double somersault in machine, • which was blown into ditch as he was . making landing. Escaped without a Fell three thousand feet, wounded in ten places, yet. dived through Mine telegraph wires and made a safe .landing. I With arm broken in two places, elbow smashed, both jaws broken, two bullets in'hand, ono in lliitrh. wound in right ankle, 'finotlier in left heel; fifteen teeth qone. and right side of face ' torn out : by explosive bullet, he lived two months in a prison hospital which had three surgeon" and six nurses lo care for six« hundred men. And last, but most important of all, JToinrich? was found in that hospital in the nick of time. He had lived only on his nerve, tho surgeons agreed, and his moral was at its lowest ebb when Willard H. Williams, the Young Men's Christian Association secretary, who wa.i (he first American to enter Metz. appeared in the. hospital, the first visible con- • firmation that the Allied forces were closo at hand.

The. large German bell, which a year ago rang the alarm on Zeebrugge Mole as Admiral Keyes's raiding squadron came into sight, was recently rung at Lover in honour of the anniversary. The bell has been mounted outside tho Town Hull, and at noon the Mayor, Mr. Edwin Fnrloy, struck eight bells upon it. The bell lias been presented to Dover by the King of the Brians in honour of Ihe Zeebnigge expedition being carried out by the Rover Patrol. ,'-<" To middle age youth''.isecms absurd if charming. The man of fifty has survived. compromised, found his task and .his place in tho world. He is carrying on the business of the world, and tho youth, however, brilliant, is not."—