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He made an unscheduled landing with the mail on his father's farm (as a stunt) and had chicken dinner with the family before flying on from the old farm hayfield.  The family still has thee farm - between Cambria and Beaver Dam, Wis.

Many times, when he was trapped by bad weather after dark, his brother on his father's farm of other farmers would wheel out their cars and turn on the lights to help Dave make an emergency landing.  There were no aids of any kind except one revolving beacon atop the Milwaukee airport hangar.

He had given his father his baptism in the air when he was flying Society Brand clothes- and his father like it.  But his mother took to the planes though, as Behncke says, she'd fly when the neighbors pointed their fingers at her and dared her to go up with her son.

Behncke stuck to that route a year and a half but he really wasn't weaned from the Army and he went back on active duty as a first lieutenant to Langley Field where, with Maj. Hugh Knerr, commanding officer of the 2nd Bombardment Group, he worked on the development of modern technique of formation flying and bombing.

One Behncke feat of that time stands out in today's world of precision bombing - the destruction of a steel and concrete bridge over the

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