The Remarkable Story of an American Boy in a Seventy-two Days’ Ordeal
of Escape from the Germans
The publishers of his book, _Outwitting the Hun_, were not extravagant
when they advertised Lieut. Pat O’Brien’s story as “one of the
strangest and most thrilling since the outbreak of the war.” No one
else had quite such an experience, and that he lived to tell of
it was due to indomitable Irish pluck rather than to any favor of
circumstances. You get the flavor of the capital book he wrote and
the tone of the man from the name he transferred to the title page.
There is no Lieut. Patricius, or even Lieut. Patrick O’Brien; but
straightforward character-delivery in plain “Lieut. Pat. O’Brien.” and
you get from it an odd sort of subconscious assurance that the very
extraordinary story he tells of his escape from the Germans is every
whit true. Yet, between his being shot down from a height of 8,000 feet
and the last item of his seventy-two days of anguish and adventure in
escaping the Huns there is many a challenge to credulity. There can be
but little of his story reproduced here.