On September 24th, 1916, he was shot down while defending a flotilla of bomb-dropping aeroplanes returning to the Verdun lines from an expedition into territories held by the Prussians. He suffered his fatal wound while above the town of Thann, and dropped into Alsatian territory, retaken from the Prussians. This was near the spot where he shot down his first adversary about April, 1916. He was on his way back to the air squadron’s base where he would have been informed that he had been promoted from first sergeant to lieutenant. He was buried with full military honors, a regiment of French territorials and a battalion of Alpine chasseurs were the guard of honor. Lieutenant Rockwell was from Atlanta, Georgia. He had been a cadet at the Virginia Military Institute, two classes ahead of Russell Kelly. Both were members of the Kappa Alpha fraternity. Kenneth Weeks was reported as missing until November 25th, 1915, when his body was found between the lines of battle. It was learned that he had been killed June 16th, or 17th, and that his body had lain there for five months. He was buried in the military cemetery at Pylones near Mont St. Eloi. He was from Boston, and had attended Harvard. He was an author of several books and possessed unusual literary ability. The first reference to him in the above letters is in one from Verzenay in March, 1915, it states: “Another American was put in our squad; he is from Boston, has been in France five years, in the Legion five months and in the trenches three months. He is a fine fellow.” [Illustration: John Earl Fike] John Earl Fike of Wooster, Ohio, enlisted under the name of his grandfather, Captain John Smith, who had rendered distinguished services in our civil war. He and Russell Kelly disappeared during the battle, and have not been since heard from. Many notices have been in the newspapers, tending to explain their absence, all of which on investigation proved incorrect. The only authoritative information regarding either of them was that “Russell Kelly was seen in the second line of German trenches with a clean wound in his left shoulder that did not seem serious.” After some time the names of these two were placed on the official list of “missing” and the French Minister of War notified their families that their names would be carried on that list until a search could be made in the internment camps of Germany. The State Department at Washington had special inquiries made by the American ambassador at Berlin, and on January 3d, 1916, Ambassador Gerard sent word from Berlin that their names were not reported among the prisoners of war in Germany. The German War Office, the Imperial Foreign Office, the German Red Cross, as well as the International Red Cross at Geneva, Switzerland, reported that their names were not registered on any list in their possession. On January 16th the _New York Sun_ contained the following cable: