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rnaay, June 19, 193LBODY IN HERO’S ®AVE NOT THAT (IF FAMED FLIERFnends Convinced Remains Not Those of Victor ChapmanBy RALPH HEIXZEXlt; United Presa Staff Correspondent) PARIS, June 19.—Fifteen years after he fell to his death inside the Of rman lines after a stubborn air battle above Verdun, the familv of Victor Chapman, first flier of the fa ned Lafayette Escadrille to die in combat, is convinced that the body buried under his name in the Amer-ICf n army cemetery at Suresnes is not his.After hostilities ended, friends hunted out the grave of Chapmar ani found a cross, well inside the old German lines, which bore on one side the name of Victor Chapman an i on the other the name of a German soldier.r'he tomb was excavated and twc bodies were found, one with bits of a German uniform and one with French equipment. The remains of the French soldier were carried ba^k to Paris and buried in the Sui esnes cemetery, but recently the blt;Vy was exhumed to permit a comparison of teeth and other identifications.BIFPERE.XCE IX TEETHChapman's former French me chanic, other Americans in the For Legion and members of th family have found great difference in 1 he teeth and shape of the body wh ch now leads them to believ, that for 12 years they have beei ■worshiping another in the grave o €h)spman and that he will lie for Wjftr in an unmarked grave.F Chapman, a great-great-grandsoi W s. signer of the Declaration of In dependence, John Jay, and a son o: John Jay Chapman, essayist anc poe*. of Barry town and New York was last seen in action when he accompanied Raoul Lufbery and Norman Prince over the German lines nea * Verdun. French airmen saw Chapman's plane dive straight dowr and break into pieces well inside the enemy lines. The American had been fighting five Germans. That occurred July 23, 1916.may have faixtedChapman had been warned against flying that day, for his head was still bandaged from a bad scalp wound and his arm still bothered him from a bullet received in combat a month before. It was never deci led whether he fainted from weakness or -was shot in the air.Chapman had volunteered, enlisted in the Foreign Legion In September, 1914, and was one of the four founders of the Lafayette Escadrille. Before the war he had- attended Harvard and then came to Paris to study architecture at the Beaux Arts. War broke out while he was touring England with his parents.Clapman's father has reached no decision about carving out the inscription on the tomb at Suresnes, but is understood to have accepted the decision of Chapman's war ^parades, now in Paris, who have •kwluded that the body Is not that 9F (he airman.GREENLAND, N. II.—(U.P.)—Tulips with four blossoms on a single stalk are horticultural oddities which may be seen in the garden of Horace W. Cannon.
Newspaper Details
Hammond Lake County Times
Hammond, Indiana, US
Fri, Jun 19, 1931
Page 11
Full Page
Clipped by
University O.
IA, USA 26 Oct 2023
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