"Nothing for me to do but fight, and my hands were full..."Helmet cleaved by gunfire... and he survives. Shot through mouth; bullet lodges in throat... and he survives. Nosedives unconscious 8,000 feet into the ground... and he survives. Leaps from window of a speeding prisoner train... and he survives. Scavenges behind enemy lines for 72 days... and survives. Electrocuted by charged-wire fence... and survives. This is just part of Lieutenant Patrick Alva O'Brien's fascinating biography. He began flying in 1912 and was one of a handful American aviators to fight over Europe in the Royal Flying Corps (via Canada) before the U.S. joined the conflict. He reportedly was the first American pilot to escape from a German prisoner camp (while captive he witnessed his best friend get shot down from the sky above him). This excerpt from O'Brien's memoir
Outwitting the Hun paints a picture of his final night flight:
I realized that my only chance lay in making an Immermann (sic) turn. This maneuver... brought one of their machines right in front of me, and as he sailed along barely ten yards away I had "the drop" on him, and he knew it. His white face and startled eyes I can still see. He knew beyond question that his last moment had come, because his position prevented his taking aim at me, while my gun pointed straight at him. My first tracer-bullet passed within a yard of his head, the second looked as if it hit his shoulder, the third struck him in the neck, and then I let him have the whole works and he went down in a spinning nose dive. All this time the three other Hun machines were shooting away at me. I could hear the bullets striking my machine one after another. I hadn't the slightest idea that I could ever beat off those three Huns, but there was nothing for me to do but fight, and my hands were full. In fighting, your machine is dropping, dropping all the time. I glanced at my instruments and my altitude was between eight and nine thousand feet. While I was still looking at the instruments the whole blamed works disappeared. A burst of bullets went into the instrument board and blew it to smithereens, another bullet went through my upper lip, came out of the roof of my mouth and lodged in my throat, and the next thing I knew was when I came to in a German hospital the following morning at five o'clock, German time. I was a prisoner of war!Today's article shines the first light the public was to receive about his ordeal. Once free, O'Brien was celebrated. He received an audience with the King of England. He was awarded the Military Cross 'in recognition of gallantry in escaping from captivity whilst a Prisoner of War'. Back home a book deal, a lecture-circuit tour, and a Hollywood movie brought wealth to match his newfound fame. Yet despite defying death so many times, just three years after O'Brien's great escape... he killed himself. Felled by domestic strife after only a few months of marriage. His suicide note read in part, "
To the five armies I have been in... to all the world and to adventure, I say good-bye." As the old saying goes, 'with war there are victims but with love there are only volunteers'. Like so many of history's intriguing characters, O'Brien's has largely faded from memory; however, relatively recently (in 2007) a memorial was dedicated in his honor.
(from the Daily Missoulian, 3 December 1917):
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Make time for yourself today to read more from Pat O'Brien's well-written memoirs as shared on Humanities Texas:
https://www.humanitiestexas.org/news/articles/firsthand-account-lieutenant-pat-obrien-world-war-i-pow
