Lt. "Benny"

A murky, blowy morning, last week, half a hundred people huddled quietly at the Rockaway Naval Air Station, L. I. Some were Colombian civilians, others U. S. aviators. They were waiting for a new Curtiss Falcon seaplane to be drawn out of her hangar and for the arrival of the pilot. He came, a small, slender young man. The aviators hailed him as "Benny." They knew him as the gas boy who filled their tanks at Curtiss Flying Field while he learned flying; the civilians respectfully called him Lt. Benjamin Mendez, of the Colombian Air Service. The seaplane was in the water, a green and yellow thing, labeled the Ricaurte after the Colombian patriot.

Lt. "Benny" shook hands with the men, kissed the ladies, jumped into his plane and was off on his 4,600 mi. "goodwill" flight home to Bogota. His talismans were the flashlight and lunch kit that the late Captain Emilio Carranza, Mexican "goodwill" flyer, carried when he was killed flying from Washington to Mexico City.