James Norman Hall Will Lecture Here

Captain James Norman Hall famous American ace of Colfax, Iowa, will come to this city Monday to give a lecture in the natural science auditorium in the evening under the auspices of the university. In his lecture, entitled "The Azure Lists," Captain Hall will tell some of the experiences of an aviator and a fighting man. Probably no other Iowan has had a more thrilling or romantic career than this American ace within the short space of three years. He entered the great war in 1914 in the English service with the first hundred thousand of Kitchener's army. Later, he served actively in France and was in charge of a machine gun section. His experiences during the fore part of the war furnished him with material to write his book, "Kitchener's Mob" which has become very popular in this country and in England. Honorably discharged in 1915, he returned to America for a short visit but soon returned to the front to enlist in the French service as a member of the famous Lafayette Escadrille. He was wounded in an air battle and invalided to a hospital and upon his recovery secured a transfer to the American service. On May 7, 1918, he was shot down near Pagny-sur-Moselle and fell behind the German lines where he was made a prisoner of war. After a period in German hospitals and prison camps he managed to make his escape into Switzerland and then to France.

Captain Hall has a sister, Marjorie, who is attending the University of Iowa at the present time. D. L. McDonald, another student in the University was a fellow prisoner of Hall's in Germany and a close
associate of the ace in the service. Captain Hall has been engaged in lecturing in the east since his return from France last March.
 

~ source: news item, Iowa City Citizen, Iowa City, Johnson co., Iowa, December 12, 1919

~ transcribed for Iowa In The Great War by Sharyl Ferrall http://iagenweb.org/iowaoldpress/