HAT IN THE RING FLIERS' EMBLEM
LIEUT. EDDIE RICKENBACKER TALKS OF AIRMEN AND THEIR METHODS.
(Copyright, 1918, by United Press.)
With the American Armies In France, July 10, (By Mail.)—"All gimpers have to live up to the idea of the squadron emblem," explained Lieut.
Eddie Rickenbacker, all-American "ace" and former automobile racing driver.
"Every man has a picture of a hat in a ring on his machine. That means that he is ready to fight at any time, whether he wants to or not. The squadron is sometimes known as the 'hat-in-the ring' squadron. But among ourselves it's gimpers. We adopted the hat-in-the-ring as our emblem back in our training days. Then it was our hope to be the first fighting squadron to get to the front.
"Our commanding officer, who had flown with the French, used to have a hat as the emblem on his machine. Some one suggested that we take the hat, but put a ring around it, carrying out the idea of Ex-President Roosevelt's famous statement, that we were ready to fight any time.
"That hat we had in mind then was a derby, and some one suggested when we were discussing the emblem that it be made an Uncle Sam's hat with stars and stripes on it. The idea was a gimper itself, and we soon designed an Uncle Sam's hat in a ring of Red, White and Blue on each machine.
WENT AFTER GERMANS.
"For a long time we could say nothing of the emblem, but finally a couple of the boys were forced down in Germany. "I can't say we have noticed any difference in the way the German flyers treated us, for they never did have the say as to whether we would fight or not. We always have had to carry out the hat-in-the-ring idea and go after them.
"
Doug Campbell added the finishing touch to the hat-in-the-ring emblem when he got his fifth Hun, and became the first all-American trained ace. Somewhere, he scared up a paint brush and painted a little black cross in the ring around the hat for each German he had brought down. They were regular German crosses. Just like the ones you see on German planes before you let them have it.
"You want to look at Doug's collection of crosses, he started them in one end of the ring and made them real small. There are now seven of them in the ring, but they stretch barely a quarter of the way across the ring. That is Doug's way of showing his confidence in getting a lot of Boches before the war is over. Doug wants to have room for all the crosses necessary across the ring, and he's made them small.
"The rest of the boys are now putting crosses in the rings as soon as they land Germans and we're getting quite a collection of black iron crosses in the gimper squadron.
PATCH HOLES WITH CROSSES.
"For holes made by the German shells in our planes we also make crosses provided the holes are of large enough size. Some of the smaller ones are too common, but the large ones can be patched with a big cross.
"Not a few of the gimpers put other pictures on the planes by way of inspiration. I think the best stunt was that of a gimper who pasted Howard Chandler Christy's war poster of the Liberty Girl on the lower wing of the machine, where he could always see it. The poster has the words, 'Buy Liberty Bonds or Fight for Her. Which will you do?'
"As the gimper explained to us, it inspired him to fight. 'I see a Boche up there and then always look at the, girl on the wing,' he said. 'It says buy bonds or fight. I haven't any money and couldn't buy a bond up there if I want to. So there's nothing to do but fight. That's the way the girl inspires me.'
"We've been out here long enough now to know that the gimpers will live up to the hat-in-the-ring idea, and they never run away from a fight. The idea was a happy one and it has had a lot to do with the morale of the squadron. The gimpers started out with the right kind of spirit and enthusiasm and it's worked wonders when we got into fights with Huns."
The Daily Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin), Tuesday Evening, August 6, 1918, p. 5
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