=F. Wilson=, one of the old originals, used up on the front, went into hospital service. At the regimental hospital, at Orleans, he made a specialty of tending and easing the path of poor, distressed, brother Americans.
=Billy Thorin=, Canton, S. D., was wounded in the head at the attack of the Legion on the Bois Sabot, September 28, 1915. He returned to the front and was gassed on the Somme, July, 1916. He was fourteen months in hospital and mustered out September, 1917. Formerly he was a marine in the U. S. Navy, also a sailor in the Chinese Imperial Navy. As a South Sea trader, he fought cannibals in the New Hebrides. He had been severely wounded in the Mexican War. He says: “Compared with a German, a Mexican is a gentleman.”
=Chas. Jean Drossner=, San Francisco, California, one of the old originals, went through the hard fighting in 1915. He was wounded in the hand and mustered out. He is the son of a capitalist.
A snippy under-officer in the Legion, not liking his independent remarks about the size of the eats, said: “You have come into the Legion to get your belly full.” The American replied, “I may not get very much food, I don’t see that any one does, but I have money. Here, buy something for the boys.” He opened his vest and handed over three 1,000 franc notes.
=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 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.