“The Pictures Are Good”
That’s All That Observation Pilot Miller Cared About When the End Came
Among the men killed at Château-Thierry was John Q. Miller, of Fairview, N. C., first lieutenant of the air service, shot down July 24, 1918. He was one of the airmen of whom the public had probably not heard, for his courage and daring were not as spectacular as the bravery of Luke, Rickenbacker or Lufbery. At the time of his death he was the greatest observation pilot on the front, according to the story of Major Elmer R. Haslett in an issue of United States Air Service, the official publication of the Army and Navy Air Service Association.
The unsung, silent heroes of the air are the observation pilots, who at the risk of life go forward into impossible places to get pictures of enemy positions and come back with their machines riddled with shrapnel from “archie” fire. At the outset Miller, says Major Haslett, attracted attention for the serious way in which he took his work. He took assignment after assignment when he might have stayed back in the barracks, and never failed to complete his mission. Momentarily driven off by hostile aircraft or by too heavy “archie,” he would return to the job and come back with his pictures or observations, and his plane so full of holes that it had to be salvaged.