22 chapters
5 hour read
Selected Chapters
22 chapters
OUTWITTING THE HUN
OUTWITTING THE HUN
My Escape from a German Prison Camp BY LIEUT. PAT O'BRIEN Royal Flying Corps ILLUSTRATED HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS NEW YORK AND LONDON Outwitting the Hun Copyright, 1918, by Lieutenant Pat O'Brien Printed in the United States of America Published March, 1918 TO THE NORTH STAR WHOSE GUIDING LIGHT MARKED THE PATHWAY TO FREEDOM FOR A WEARY FUGITIVE, THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED IN HUMBLE GRATITUDE AND ABIDING FAITH...
1 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
PREFACE
PREFACE
There is a common idea that the age of miracles is past. Perhaps it is, but if so, the change must have come about within the past few weeks—after I escaped into Holland. For if anything is certain in this life it is this: this book never would have been written but for the succession of miracles set forth in these pages. Miracles, luck, coincidence, Providence—it doesn't matter much what you call it—certainly played an important part in the series of hairbreadth escapes in which I figured durin
2 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
I THE FOLLY OF DESPAIR
I THE FOLLY OF DESPAIR
Less than nine months ago eighteen officers of the Royal Flying Corps, which had been training in Canada, left for England on the Megantic . If any of them was over twenty-five years of age, he had successfully concealed the fact, because they don't accept older men for the R. F. C. Nine of the eighteen were British subjects; the other nine were Americans, who, tired of waiting for their own country to take her place with the Allies, had joined the British colors in Canada. I was one of the latt
4 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
II I BECOME A FIGHTING-SCOUT
II I BECOME A FIGHTING-SCOUT
I started flying, in Chicago, in 1912. I was then eighteen years old, but I had had a hankering for the air ever since I can remember. As a youngster I followed the exploits of the Wrights with the greatest interest, although I must confess I sometimes hoped that they wouldn't really conquer the air until I had had a whack at it myself. I got more whacks than I was looking for later on. Needless to say, my parents were very much opposed to my risking my life at what was undoubtedly at that time
12 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
III CAPTURED BY THE HUNS
III CAPTURED BY THE HUNS
I shall not easily forget the 17th of August, 1917. I killed two Huns in a double-seated machine in the morning, another in the evening, and then I was captured myself. I may have spent more eventful days in my life, but I can't recall any just now. That morning, in crossing the line on early morning patrol, I noticed two German balloons. I decided that as soon as my patrol was over I would go off on my own hook and see what a German balloon looked like at close quarters. These observation ballo
12 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
IV CLIPPED WINGS
IV CLIPPED WINGS
The hospital in which I found myself on the morning after my capture was a private house made of brick, very low and dirty, and not at all adapted for use as a hospital. It had evidently been used but a few days, on account of the big push that was taking place at that time of the year, and in all probability would be abandoned as soon as they had found a better place. In all, the house contained four rooms and a stable, which was by far the largest of all. Although I never looked into this "win
17 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
V THE PRISON-CAMP AT COURTRAI
V THE PRISON-CAMP AT COURTRAI
From the Intelligence Department I was conveyed to the officers' prison-camp at Courtrai in an automobile. It was about an hour's ride. My escort was one of the most famous flyers in the world, barring none. He was later killed in action, but I was told by an English airman who witnessed his last combat that he fought a game battle and died a hero's death. The prison, which had evidently been a civil prison of some kind before the war, was located right in the heart of Courtrai. The first buildi
22 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
VI A LEAP FOR LIBERTY
VI A LEAP FOR LIBERTY
I had been in prison at Courtrai nearly three weeks when, on the morning of September 9th, I and six other officers were told that we were to be transferred to a prison-camp in Germany. One of the guards told me during the day that we were destined for a reprisal camp in Strassburg. They were sending us there to keep our airmen from bombing the place. He explained that the English carried German officers on hospital-ships for a similar purpose, and he excused the German practice of torpedoing th
9 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
VII CRAWLING THROUGH GERMANY
VII CRAWLING THROUGH GERMANY
The exact spot at which I made my desperate leap I don't know. Perhaps, after the war is over, some one on that train will be good enough to tell me, and then I may go back and look for the dent I must have made in the rock ballast. As I have said, I didn't stop very long that morning after I once regained my senses. I was bleeding profusely from the wounds caused by the fall, but I checked it somewhat with handkerchiefs I held to my face and I also held the tail of my coat so as to catch the bl
7 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
VIII NINE DAYS IN LUXEMBOURG
VIII NINE DAYS IN LUXEMBOURG
I was now heading northwest and I thought that by keeping that course I would get out of Luxembourg and into Belgium, where I expected to be a little better off, because the people in Luxembourg were practically the same as Germans. One of the experiences I had in Luxembourg which I shall never forget occurred the first day that I spent there. I had traveled all night and I was feeling very weak. I came to a small wood with plenty of low underbrush, and I picked out a thick clump of bushes which
14 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
IX I ENTER BELGIUM
IX I ENTER BELGIUM
I have said it was about the eighteenth day after my escape that I entered Belgium, but that is more or less guesswork. I was possibly well into that country before I realized that I had crossed the line. About the third day after I figured I was in Belgium I started to swim a canal just before daylight. I was then heading due north in the direction of the German lines. I was just about to wade into the canal when I heard a German yelling violently, and for the first time I knew I was being foll
18 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
X EXPERIENCES IN BELGIUM
X EXPERIENCES IN BELGIUM
I think that one of the worst things I had to contend with in my journey through Belgium was the number of small ditches. They intercepted me at every half-mile or so, sometimes more frequently. The canals and the big rivers I could swim. Of course, I got soaked to the skin every time I did it, but I was becoming hardened to that. These little ditches, however, were too narrow to swim and too wide to jump. They had perhaps two feet of water in them and three feet of mud, and it was almost invari
11 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
XI I ENCOUNTER GERMAN SOLDIERS
XI I ENCOUNTER GERMAN SOLDIERS
What the Belgian had told me about the need of a passport gave me fresh cause for worry. Suppose I should run into a German sentry before I succeeded in getting one? I decided that until I reached the big city which the Belgian had mentioned—and which I cannot name for fear of identifying some of the people there who befriended me—I would proceed with the utmost precaution. Since I had discarded my uniform and had obtained civilian clothes I had not been quite as careful as I was at first. While
13 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
XII THE FORGED PASSPORT
XII THE FORGED PASSPORT
For obvious reasons I cannot describe the man to whom I applied for the passport, nor the house in which he lived. While, in view of what subsequently happened, I would not be very much concerned if he got into trouble for having dealt with me, I realize that the hardships he had endured in common with all the other inhabitants of that conquered city may possibly have distorted his ideas of right and justice, and I shall not deliberately bring further disaster on him by revealing his identity. T
25 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
XIII FIVE DAYS IN AN EMPTY HOUSE
XIII FIVE DAYS IN AN EMPTY HOUSE
The five days I spent in that house seemed to me like five years. During all that time I had very little to eat—less, in fact, than I had been getting in the fields. I did not feel it so much, perhaps, because of the fact that I was no longer exposed to the other privations which had helped to make my condition so wretched. I now had a good place to sleep, at any rate, and I did not awake every half-hour or so as I had been accustomed to do in the fields and woods, and, of course, my hunger was
19 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
XIV A NIGHT OF DISSIPATION
XIV A NIGHT OF DISSIPATION
During the first two days I spent with Huyliger after I had first arrived in the big city he had told me, among other things, of a moving-picture show in town which he said I might have a chance to see while there. "It is free every night in the week except Saturdays and Sundays," he said, "and once you are inside you would not be apt to be bothered by any one except when they come to take your order for something to drink. While there is no admission, patrons are expected to eat or drink while
10 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
XV OBSERVATIONS IN A BELGIAN CITY
XV OBSERVATIONS IN A BELGIAN CITY
One night, shortly before I left this city, our airmen raided the place. I didn't venture out of the house at the time, but the next night I thought I would go out and see what damage had been done. When it became dark I left the house, accordingly, and, mixing with the crowd, which consisted largely of Germans, I went from one place to another to see what our "strafing" had accomplished. Naturally I avoided speaking to any one. If a man or woman appeared about to speak to me, I just turned my h
4 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
XVI I APPROACH THE FRONTIER
XVI I APPROACH THE FRONTIER
To get out of the city it would be necessary to pass two guards. This I had learned in the course of my walks at night, having frequently traveled to the city limits with the idea of finding out just what conditions I would have to meet when the time came for me to leave. A German soldier's uniform, however, no longer worried me as it had at first. I had mingled with the Huns so much in the city that I began to feel that I was really a Belgian, and I assumed the indifference that the latter seem
9 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
XVII GETTING THROUGH THE LINES
XVII GETTING THROUGH THE LINES
Waiting until it was quite dark, I made my way carefully through a field and eventually came to the much-dreaded barrier. It was all that I had heard about it. Every foot of the border-line between Belgium and Holland is protected in precisely the same manner. It is there to serve three purposes: first, to keep the Belgians from escaping into Holland; second, to keep enemies, like myself, from making their way to freedom; and, third, to prevent desertions on the part of Germans themselves. One l
12 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
XVIII EXPERIENCES IN HOLLAND
XVIII EXPERIENCES IN HOLLAND
But I was not yet quite out of the woods. I now knew that I was in Holland, but just where I had no idea. I walked for about thirty minutes and came to a path leading to the right, and I had proceeded along it but a few hundred yards when I saw in front of me a fence exactly like the one I had crossed. "This is funny," I said to myself. "I didn't know the Dutch had a fence, too." I advanced to the fence and examined it closely, and judge of my astonishment when I saw beyond it a nine-foot fence
20 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
XIX I AM PRESENTED TO THE KING
XIX I AM PRESENTED TO THE KING
When the dreaded 7th of December arrived I hailed a taxicab and in as matter-of-fact tone of voice as I could command directed the chauffeur to drive me to Buckingham Palace, as though I were paying my regular morning call on the King. My friends' version of this incident, I have since heard, is that I seated myself in the taxi and, leaning through the window, said, "Buckingham Palace!" whereupon the taxi driver got down, opened the door, and exclaimed, threateningly: "If you don't get out quiet
6 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
XX HOME AGAIN!
XX HOME AGAIN!
That same day, in the evening, I was tendered a banquet at the Hotel Savoy by a fellow-officer who had bet three other friends of mine that I would be home by Christmas. This wager had been made at the time he heard that I was a prisoner of war, and the dinner was the stake. The first intimation he had of my safe return from Germany and the fact that he had won his bet was a telegram I sent him reading as follows: Lieutenant Louis Grant : War-bread bad, so I came home. Pat. He said he would not
3 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter