Anderson, Charles Patrick

Born April 20, 1896, in Oak Park, Illinois. Son of Bishop Charles P. and Janet Glass Anderson. Educated Oxford School, Chicago; Howe School, Indiana; University of Illinois, two years, and Dartmouth College, Class of 1918. Joined American Field Service, May 5, 1917; attached Transport Sections 133 and 526 to October 8, 1917. Enlisted U. S. Aviation. Trained Clermont-Ferrand and commissioned First Lieutenant; attached 96th Pursuit Squadron. Shot down and killed, September 16, 1918, within German lines, near Conflans. Buried Joudreville, Meurthe-et-Moselle, north of Conflans. Body transferred to St. Mihiel American Cemetery, Thiaucourt, Meurthe-et-Moselle.

"BUT after all, the main question is not whether men live or die. It is whether they live or die for a good purpose." The words are Bishop Anderson's. His son, Charles Patrick Anderson, did die for the highest purpose a man may know, and so, too, he had lived. The father says that one can only guess what kind of a man he would have become, but we who see the record of his achievement know the answer to such questioning: "Pat" must have followed his fine ideals through all his days, must have chosen trails along the mountain peaks, must have made his career in continuation as unselfish, as clean, and as complete as he made the all too brief years he lived.

September 16, 1918, four bombing Breguets of the 96th Squadron crossed the lines in the late afternoon, Lieutenant Anderson piloting the foremost plane with Lieutenant Hugh Thompson as his observer. In his official report, Lieutenant Codman, shot down in the raid, says, as if it were an insignificant commonplace to fly four-strong against twenty-four, "On approaching Conflans, twenty-four enemy aircraft were sighted making for us . . . . . They engaged us after we had reached our objective and dropped our bombs." With no thought of turning from their course until their goal was reached, "' Pat' remained perfectly calm throughout and kept on flying his plane as if nothing were happening." Codman "saw four German planes, two on each side, dive at Hugh's plane. . . . ." "Pat," another survivor said, "instead of starting the machine downward" to escape, "bravely faced the machine-gun fire of the Boche, thus protecting the other planes back of him . . . . . such a wonderfully brave deed . . . . ... What less was possible for one who wrote, "War is war, and all any of us can do is to trust in God and go to it."

"Pat" was an out of doors boy. City life, society, theatres, parties were of mere passing interest, "worth while but unsatisfying." Many things interested, but it was the "great outdoors" that absorbed him. A reticent boy, he became exuberant when he escaped to the winds and spaces, away from streets and houses. He loved and was loved by animals. He hunted and fished and rode. Never one for shallow half-friendships, his friends were many---loyal and worth while. Yet always his boon companion was his father. Keenest enjoyment he had on mountain top or in the depths of forests, in the solitudes. What wonder then that he was supremely happy in the air! "He mastered the air ... .. he played with the air ... ... . . . . he loved flying," say comrades. There "Pat" was at home. In his own words, "God is in the air as well as on the ground."

Rejected in America for aviation, he joined the Field Service, giving himself whole-heartedly to his work of truck-driving. But his dreams were of the air, and, in October, 1917, he became a flier. He was pilot of the first American bombing team to cross the lines, and at the time of their death, "Pat" and his observer were the only untouched flying members of the original Squadron, all the others having been wounded, captured, or killed.

Constantly, "Pat" assured the family of his abounding health and peace of mind. "Your worryings would turn to envy if only you could see the delightful time I am having and still getting credit for being a soldier." But he was honestly humble in his service, "Take off your hat, father," he said, "to the men in the trenches."

"In the presence of Death one thinks more about character than about accomplishment," says "Pat's" father, and later, "he never caused his sisters to blush or his parents to sigh." What finer success of character could be a man's than that?

• Tribute from Memorial Volume of the American Field Service, 1921