for what seemed about five minutes and then gradually I became used to the idea I'd be burned up or blown to bits.

    "By this time a group of soldiers came up and in the background somewhere was an ambulance, but somehow none of it mattered. I could see a doctor getting out alot of ominous-looking instruments. I guess someone was trying to fight the fire, but I can't remember now. All I knew was that any minute that doctor guy was coming over and cut my leg off -- because my foot was caught and if that fire got many inches closer they were going to hack me out.

    "Finally some GI had a bright idea and he somehow got one arm inside the wreck and cut my boot off and I was able to wriggle my foot out. They freed me and dragged me away, but I'll live a long time before I really forget that doctor guy standing there with those butcher tools.

    "The GI who got me out? Funny about that. I never found out his name but I guess he's getting something worthwhile to remember me by. They tell me he's been out in for a Soldier's Medal. He sure earned it, too."

    Lt. Lee W. Anderson who hails from Stanley, N.D., went loco hunting one day. Lee was really anxious too... and I mean anxious. He found one all right and he went down

after it, but he was so intent on making a good job of it, he almost bumped himself off. Anyway, he went in so close that when he came out he had left a part of a propeller blade and a long section of his fuselage on the engine.

    "They build those French trains too damned high," Anderson argued when he got back.

    "We got a troop train and 300 soldiers," reported Capt. Maurice R. McLeary of Pendleton, Ind., when he came back from a train strafe the other day. How he figured getting 300 soldiers is explained in the following.

    "As we went about our business of knocking out the locomotives, the soldiers were streaming out of the cars, but they were really dumb, what I mean. Instead of streaking it for the trees they just flopped flat in the open field. We wrecked the locomotive and then went back to work on the soldiers.

    "We made three sweeping passes at them and only a few got up again to run for real shelter. That's what I say. We got two locomotives, a troop train and three hundred soldiers, believe me," closed Capt. McLeary.

    We'll believe anything about the Loco Group.

    Saint Exup'ery's Night Flight and Lindbergh's We were the only two aviation books in our little 6'x6' school library. No one else but me got to read them. I possessed them by continuous checkout. I tried to emulate the looks and thinking of Lindbergh and from St. Exup'ery's Night Flight my mind developed my destiny. I must somehow learn to fly and get to South america. That was where it was at. Arch Whitehouse and his dime novel stories about WWI flying developed other adventures in the mind along the way.

    Life's happenings are strange. One spring day in 1944 Arch Whitehouse showed up at our group. He actually wanted to meet us and shake our hands... all one hundred fifty of us, not just mine. At that time I didn't know anyone but me had read all those dime novels. He wanted to write a magazine story about us... I just couldn't say a word, let alone think of a thing of interest. That story became the great story in True Magazine titled the "Loco Boys Go Wild".

    -- Arthur Heiden

    Born in Northampton, England in 1895, ARCH WHITEHOUSE, the pen name of Arthur George Joseph Whitehouse, (1895-1979) was a noted military authority who was himself a Royal Flying Corps gunner and fighter ace in World War I, earning sixteen air victories and the rank of Acting Captain. He quit his job as an assistant at Thomas Edison's laboratory, made his way back to England and eventually became a machine gunner. In 1916 he transferred to the RFC and became a gunner in two-seater biplanes. He and his pilot were shot down by Baron Manfred Von Richtofen ("The Red Baron"). In 1917 he was wounded but later returned to fly bombing missions. At the conclusion of the war he returned to the United States and became a writer. He was best known for his dime novels and pulp fiction pieces - featuring such names as Crash Carringer, Tug Hardwick, Kerry Keen, Coffin Kirk and Buzz Benson - which appeared in Flying Aces magazine. During World War II Whitehouse visited King's Cliffe and wrote this article, which appeared in the November, 1944 issue of True - The Magazine For Men.