RUTH LAW WANTS TO FIGHT GERMANS
"I Am at the Service of My Country," She Says.
INSISTS ON DUTY AT FRONT
Diminutive Aviator, Back From Trip to England and France, Says Our Aeroplanes Are Too Heavy—Praise For Young Men Who Have Turned Out For Aviation Training.
"I am at the service of my country for flying duty at any moment I may be called upon," says Miss Ruth Law, aviator, as she came into port after several months spent in England and France observing the latest methods of using aeroplanes in warfare.
"I am willing to fly a fast little scout machine alone, traveling 120 or 150 miles an hour, or I'll drive a heavier machine carrying a gun and gunner and go into actual battle with the enemy," added the diminutive holder of the Chicago-New York flight record. "That's what I'd like to do more than anything—get right into the fight.
"The only request I shall make of the government when I offer my services formally is that I be sent to the front, wherever it is. Above all things I'd like to go to the front in France if America sends any soldiers over there.
"If we have a woman congressman, why can't we have a woman fighting aviator?" she demanded.
Record Shows Her Ability.
Of Miss Law's ability there is no question. Her performances prove that. She holds the altitude mark for a woman—nearly 12,000 feet—and the cross country American record for either sex.
"I am arranging to get a Morane-Saulnier monoplane from France and am willing to enter it in the service of the United States," Miss Law continued. "That is the fastest plane in use in Europe. I had a flight over Paris in a two seater with Robert Morane, the inventor. I thought I had flown fast before, but my eyes were opened by the speed of that bus."
The little queen of the air was enthusiastic in her praise of the way in which young men of England and France had turned out for aviation training. She displayed a picture of one of the French fields at Le Bourget, near Paris, where there are 150 hangars and 100 machines in each hangar. "I never dreamed there were so many aeroplanes in the world," she said. "Why, they buzz over the city of Paris almost like mosquitoes.
"You'll see a big triplane carrying a crew of three or four men and a three inch gun, surrounded by twenty or thirty fast little planes armed with machine guns to protect the big fellows."
Met the Famous Guynemer.
Miss Law tried to get to the fighting front, but was permitted no farther than Compiegne, close to where the Germans were turned away from their march toward Parts early in the war.
"I met all the boys of the Lafayette escadrille, the American flying group," she said, "and I had the privilege of chatting with the greatest fighting flier of all, Lieutenant Guynemer, who has shot down more than thirty fliers. He gave me a ring fashioned from the button of a German airman's coat."
Comparing the foreign aeroplanes with those in use here, Miss Law said ours are entirely too heavy. The English and French machines are very much lighter and therefore easier to handle and capable of far greater speed.
"Just think of those Morane machines getting up 6,000 feet in seven minutes," she said. "Many of them can climb almost a thousand feet a minute, and it took me an hour and a half to get up to 12,000 with my little old biplane when I made the altitude record. Our materials and bodies should be refined and lightened."
The little aviator said American men by the thousands ought to be turning out for air service right now, particularly for coast defense duty.
"I saw a wonderful new bit of trick flying at Le Bourget," she went on. "It is a stunt called 'le vrille' (the gimlet). While the machine is on a level the head stands still, and then the tail whirls around and around. It is done by jamming the rudders. But with all the fancy flying I saw I still believe the best trick aviator I ever beheld as Lincoln Beachey, our own Yankee boy."
Miss Law brought back with her a French trench dog called Poilu, who saw much actual fighting and was wounded several times. He wears a miniature steel helmet.
Indiana Weekly Messenger (Indiana, Pennsylvania) - Thursday, April 12, 1917
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