Maurice Davis, of Brooklyn, New York, rose to the rank of lieutenant and was killed in action.
Harold Buckley Willis was reported killed September 3, 1917, but later developments proved that, during a combat with German machines, he was compelled to land on German soil, August 18, and was taken prisoner.
Rouel Lufbury, Wallingford, Conn., Foreign Legion, changed to Aviation, a real cosmopolitan American, for fifteen years roamed the two hemispheres. Now, crippled by rheumatism, he rides his aerial carriage and kills German aviators for recreation. He served as a United States soldier in the Philippines and held the marksmanship[marksmanship] record in his regiment. While engaged in railroad work in India, on refusing to say “Sir” to a prominent citizen of Bombay, he lost his job just about the time the P. C. felt the toe of Lufbury’s boot. He traveled in Turkey, Japan, China, Africa and South America October 12, 1916, the day Norman Prince was mortally wounded, Lufbury got his fifth Boche machine. By December, 1917, he had brought down, officially, eighteen. He is the first American to be awarded the gold medal of the Aero Club of France. He is also decorated with the Croix de Guerre with six palms; and is a chevalier of the Legion of Honor. In the spring of 1918, he was transferred and promoted major in the American Army, and when engaged in battle, a bullet from the enemy punctured the gasoline tank, and he jumped from the burning machine to his death.
Joseph C. Stehlin, Sheepshead Bay, Long Island, brought down a Boche machine, when he had only been twenty days in service on the front. He attacked three enemy machines alone and brought down one with a pilot, observer, and two guns.
George Meyer, Brooklyn, New York, was killed in the Foreign Legion, by a shell, while waiting for the order to go over the top near Rheims, April, 1917.
Robert Arrowsmith, New Jersey, was wounded in the hip, and lying in hospital when America entered the war. The wound not healing quickly, he objected to hospital life, because: “There is so much going on, and so much work to be done.”
Dr. David D. Wheeler, Buffalo, New York, practicing physician, thought being a doctor in the rear was too much of a shirker’s business. So, he went into the Legion at the front; and the Legionnaires still talk about the American, who wore no shirt most of the time, who never unslung his knapsack en route, who tented alone, who never bent the body or dodged a bullet, who was supposed killed at the Bois Sabot, but who lived through it and was found in hospital. Wounded himself seriously, he had cared for others professionally in “No-Man’s-Land,” while under fire. He was decorated with the Croix de Guerre, with palm, and mustered out, used up.
John Charton, Foreign Legion, seriously wounded by a machine gun bullet in the attack on Balloy-en-Santerre, July 4, 1916, after months in hospital, was sent back as reinforcement to a Zouave Regiment. He then went into the Aviation at Avord.
Kenneth Weeks, of Boston, 25 years old, a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity, author of “Driftwood,” “Esau and the Beacon,” “Five Impractical Plays,” and “Science, Sentiment and Sense.” Passed the first winter in Battalion D, of the 1st Legion in Rheims Sector. He was in the Arras attack of May 9th and 10th, and mentioned for bravery. Acting as a grenadier in an attack on Givenchy, June 17, 1915, he was first reported missing, then captured; and, several months later, officially, killed.
He said, “Mother, is it not better that I should die than that the Germans should come over here?”