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Show (First American Aviator to ' ' - Escape Tells His Story ; M '. LONDON, Nov. 29. Lieutenant Pat- :. aj rick O'Brien of Momence, 111., south of " H Chicago, the first American member of r a the British flying corps to escape from - ri " Germany, has arrived in London. L O'Brien eluded his captors by jumping -Wt from the window of a speeding train. He then became a fugitive for soventy-two soventy-two davs and, as his goal was within sight, narrowly escaped electrocution "Ys ' from the charged wires along the Hol- :i land frontier. r & I After cabling his aged mother, Mrs. JJ.V : Margaret O'Brien, at Momence to ox-' ox-' Vo . pect to see him again soon, Lieutenant rSXM O'Brien called upon American Ambas- c sador Page to seek advice regarding ; his desire to be transferred to the . 'A American flying corps. Last night .j O'Brien was dined by a group of ad-' ad-' miring fliers,, who, like scores of friends along the front, had believed ' .; he had been killed when he was re-' re-' ported missing on August 17 last. : i O'Brien, who is a sturdy young man 4 I of 27, was flying in the American avla-. avla-. tion squadron at San Diego, Cal., when " ho went to Victoria, B. C, and obtained . j .. a commission In tho Canadian army. ,) r The next year he distinguished him- J, ? self by his great daring over the Ger-j Ger-j . Anan lines. On the morning of August IflL 17 enemy gunners forced him to de-scend de-scend but fortunately he landed behind r , his own lines. y I L I, Attacked By Four Machines Late in the afternoon of tho next day saw him up again over the German lines fighting the enemy". There were twenty German machines to six British in the encounter, O'Brien's machine alone engaging four enemy craft and accounting for one before O'Brien was shot through the upper lip. Ho fell with his damaged airplane from a height of 8000 feet. O'Brien says ho cannot explain why he was not killed. When he regained consciousness he was in a Gorman hospital. Later the lieutenant spent three weeks at a prison camp at Couftrai before ho was started for the Interior of Germany. There woro three other prisoners under a strong guard In his compartment when O'Brien, as a ruse, had the window opened by complaining complain-ing of tho smoke. When tho train was sixty miles Inside In-side Germany and traveling thirty miles an hour O'Brien jumped from the train skinning the whole side of his face, re-opening the wound in. his Hp and losing consciousness. It was about 4 o'clock in the morning and the darkness dark-ness shielded him. When he recovered recover-ed he was lying In a field. Seventy-two Days a Fugitive Then for seventy-two days he was a fugitive, traveling only at night. He trudged through fields and swam rlv- ers and canals in Germany, Luxemburg Luxem-burg and Belgium before ho reached the Dutch frontier. At the time of his flight he had a piece of sausage on which he subsisted several days after which his solo sustenance consisted of turnips and other vegetables found in fields. O'Brien did not know tho German language but he used a little French on a kindly Belgian who was so happy to meet an American In British uniform uni-form that he sheltered him for sevoral days. The Belgian then gave him old clothes to cover his uniform and directed di-rected him to tho nearest routo to the frontier. O'Brien swam the river Meuso near Namur and tho next day was challenged by Germnn sentries who decided ho was a peasant. But his narrowest escape was reserved re-served for his Inst day as a fugitive when ho could seo Dutch territory. To circumvent tho charged wires O'Brien built a bridge in a nearby wood and throw it across the wires. But it broke under his weight and O'Brien' received a shock which ho says ho can still feel. When ho recovered ho dug with his baro hands a tunnel under the wlro and although it was slow, after several hours ho had a hole big enough to crawl through. Ho then hurried to tho nearest British consul who arranged for his transportation to London, |