YANKEE AVIATORS PLAY IN LUCK —— Dead Engine Sneezes and Picks Up after a 2,000 Meter Drop. —— SKY FULL OF CREAM PUFFS. —— Observer Who Fails to Surround Something Hot Faints From the Cold. ——

Those were American boys who dodged Boche air patrols, laughed at anti-aircraft guns and spattered bombs upon Rombach and Ludwigshafen far behind the Boche lines.

One of them used to be a Presbyterian minister, the Rev. Joseph Wilson, of Wheeling, W. Va., another is Bud Lehr, of Albion, Neb., who played center on a basketball team that won the State championship. The others are Charles Kinsolving and Charles Kerwood, of Philadelphia, and George Kyle, of Portland, Ore. They are corporals in a French flying squadron situated within an hour's flight of an American infantry training camp.

Seated around the rough mess table in their popotte—a tiny building stuck away on a ledge of rock under a cliff—they told all about the bombing of the railroad stations and ammunition factories at Rombach and Ludwigshafen.

"The old Boche almost got me that time," said Lehr, lifting the oil cloth table cover to knock wood. "The engine of my boat died on me just over Rombach. I pulled everything in sight and kicked every lever I couldn't see. Nothing doing; anti-aircraft shells bursting right on a level with me. We began to drop. I turned around to the observer and pulled a sea-sick grin.

A Sneeze Spelled Joy.

"'It's all off, kid,' he said. 'Looks like we're through.'

"We dropped from 5,000 meters to 3,000. Then the engine sneezed, coughed and took up again. My heart and the boat came up 2,000 meters in one jump. The rest of the formation had gone on, dropped their bombs on Rombach and were beating it for Ludwigshafen. By the time I got back to my right altitude I could see the effects of their bombs. The railroad station was burning like a haystack and smoke was coming from the munitions plant. I circled the town and the observer released the bombs.

"Then I turned nose back towards Verdun and crossed the lines. A couple of miles behind the line the engine ran out of gas, so we came down in a field."

They circled several times on the French side of the lines before crossing in order to reach the necessary altitude. Kyle dropped eight bombs, most of them on the munition plant at Ludwigshafen.

"The sky was full of cream puffs," he said, "but it didn't bother us very much because most of the stuff was breaking above or below us. We took our time, aimed for the objective, and dropped the bombs.

Can't See Bomb's Results.

"You can't hear them explode or see the results unless you're flying quite a distance behind the squadron because we go so fast that by the time the fire gets under way we are miles off. Except for Lehr's machine, we maintained our formation and came out flying in the same position. If there were any Boche patrols out in our neighborhood they knew better than to tackle us.

"When we came down I found my observer unconscious. I thought he had been hit, but he had only fainted from the cold.

"You big rummy," turning to the observer and swiping one of his cigarettes from the open box on the table—"You big rummy, I told you you had better surround something hot before starting—a bowl of oatmeal or coffee.

"Gimmie a light now."

All five are awaiting their transfer to the American flying corps.