Viewing page 148 of 171

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

-3-

On that flight another of our planes was shot down. The pilot was Roger Hitchcock, the one who had brought Burns's body home from the previous flight. With him fell another observer, Frank Moore.

After that Jordan told me that he had about decided to quit flying. He did not however notify the office at once of that decision. I had a talk with Littauer about Jordan's state of mind. Littauer arranged a three-day leave in Paris for both Jordan and Bernheimer. When Jordan returned he seemed quite serene. He and Bernheimer continued to fly together for the remainder of the war. They never again had such a close call as they had had on August 11th.So far as I know Jordan never again contemplated going off the air.

After the war he went to work with a brokerage house in Indianapolis. I saw him just once, when he came to Chicago to marry an Oak Park girl. We exchanged a few letters, then lost touch. Once, on a trip for the NF that took me to Indianapolis, I tried to find his telephone number, but the directory listed only that of his widow. He had died some time in the 1940's.

Bernheimer, Jordan's pilot, had such a dark skin that, seeing him at a distance, you might have taken him for a negro. At a closer view you saw that there was nothing negroid about the shape of his face. Nor was there anything typically Jewish, so far as I could see. He looked more like a Hindu than anything else. Once I saw a movie in which Tyrone Power, in dark make-up, played the part of an Indian rajah. He reminded me at once of Bernheimer. He was handsome, as you may have deduced, and he was also something of a dandy. He wore tailored uniforms that obviously were expensive. When all the officers slept barracks-wise in one big room, as we had at Ourches and Francheville, Bernheimer was conspicuous at bedtime because he wore red silk pajamas. Most men in 1918 were too modest for that. Bernheimer impressed me as the spoiled son of rich parents.

Unlike Heilbrunn, who was always soft-spoken and gentle, Bernheimer had a sharp tongue and was haughty toward anyone he disliked. That included anyone whom he suspected of imputing cowardice to Jews.

Nowadays, especially since the Israeli wars, you seldom hear anyone criticising the Jews as a race for unwillingness to fight. But at the time of WW1 there were jokes and songs in circulation on that subject. Bernheimer and I were always on good terms, for I sympathized with him.