Floyd Gibbons: world adventurer and journalist

              FLOYD GIBBONS

World Adventurer and Journalist



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© 
HARRIS
 & 
EWING




FLOYD GIBBONS

Adventurer Around the World





Floyd Gibbons As a War Correspondent in 1918, Convalescing from Numerous Wounds





M
R. GIBBONS is chief foreign correspondent of The Chicago Tribune.  He organized that system of correspondents in Europe which has connections all over the continent and which supplies a number of American newspapers with the latest news.  Back in the red days on the Rio Grande, word came from Pancho Villa that any 
Gringoes
 found in Mexico would be killed on sight.  The American people were interested in the Revolution at the border.  Gibbons went into the Mexican hills alone and called Villa's bluff.  He did more.  He fitted out a box car, attached it to the revolutionary bandit's train and was in the thick of three of Villa's biggest battles.  Gibbons brought out of Mexico the first authoritative information on the Mexican situation.  The following year the War Department accredited him to General Pershing's punitive expedition and he rode with the flying column led by General Pershing when it crossed the border.





In the Thick of World War



Marshal Foch, the commander of eleven million bayonets wrote that no man was more qualified than Gibbons to tell the true story of the Western Front.  General Pershing, Commander-in-Chief of the American Expeditionary Forces, said that it was Gibbons' great opportunity to give the people in America a life-like picture of the work of the American Soldier in France.





Picked For Important Mission



In 1917, the then Imperial German Government announced to the world that on and after February 1st, its submarines would sink without warning any ship that ventured to enter a zone it had drawn in the waters of the North Atlantic.




Gibbons sensed the meaning of this challenge.  He saw ahead the overt act that was bound to come and be the cause of the United States entering the war.  In those days the cry of 
Preparedness
 was echoing in the land.  England had paid dearly for her lack of preparedness.  The inefficient volunteer system had cost her priceless blood.  The Chicago Tribune sought the most available newspaper man to send to London and write the story of England's costly mistakes for the profit of the American people.  Gibbons was picked for the mission and arrangement was made for him to travel on the steamer by which the German Ambassador, Count Von Bernstorff, was to return to Germany.  The ship's safe conduct was guaranteed.  Gibbons did not like this feature of the trip.  He wanted to be on the job when it happened.  He cancelled the passage provided for him on the Von Bernstorff ship and took passage on the largest liner in port, a ship large enough to be readily seen through a submarine periscope and important enough to attract the special attention of the German Admiralty.  He sailed on the 
Laconia,
 an eighteen thousand ton Cunarder.





Survivor of 
Laconia



On the night of February 27, 1917, when the 
Laconia
 was two hundred miles off the coast of Ireland, the Gibbons' hunch was fulfilled.  The 
Laconia
 was torpedoed and sunk.  After a perilous night in a small boat on the open sea, Gibbons was rescued and brought into Queenstown.  He opened the cables and flashed to America the most powerful call to arms to the American people. It shock the country.  It was the testimony of an eye witness and it convinced the American Government, beyond all reasonable doubt, of the willful and malicious murder of American citizens.  The Gibbons story furnished the proof of the overt act and was read on the floor of the Senate; it was unofficially admitted at Washington that it was the determining factor in sending America into the war one month later.





Over The Top



On June 6, 1918, Gibbons went 
over the top
 with the first waves in the great battle of the Bois de Belleau.  Gibbons was with Major John Berry, who, while leading the charge, fell wounded.  Gibbons saw him fall.  Through the hail of lead from spitting machine guns, he rushed to the assistance of the wounded Major.  A German machine gun bullet shot away part of his left shoulder, but this did not stop Gibbons.  Another bullet smashed through his arm, but still Gibbons kept on.  A third bullet got him.  It tore out his left eye and made a compound fracture of the skull.  For three hours he lay conscious on the open field in the Bois de Belleau with a murderous machine gun fire playing a few inches over his head until, under cover of darkness, he was able to crawl off the field.  For his gallant conduct he received a citation from General Petain, Commander-in-Chief of the French Armies, and the French Government awarded him the Croix de Guerre with Palm.





Makes Quick Recovery



On July 5th, he was out of the hospital and back at the front, covering the first advance of the Americans with the British forces before Amiens.  On July 18th he was the only American correspondent with the American troops when they executed the history-making drive against the German armies in the Chateau-Thirerry salient—the beginning of the German end.  He rode with the first detachment of American troops that entered Chateau-Thierry upon the heels of the retreating Germans.





From the Start to the Finish



Gibbons greeted Pershing on the latter's landing in Liverpool.  He accompanied the Commander of the American Expeditionary Forces across the Channel and was at his side when he put foot on French soil.  He was one of the two American correspondents to march with the first American


Floyd Gibbons Oceionally Does Sit Still




Floyd Gibbons in Dress to Greet a Saharan King in 1925

 troops that entered the trenches on the Western front.  He was with the first American troops to cross the German frontier.  He was with the artillery battalion that fired the first American shell into Germany.





Crosses Sahara In Summer



After the Armistice, his adventures continued.  One of his best exploits was his sensational crossing of the Sahara four years ago in the height of summer.




That desert crossing was an epic.  For three months and five days the expedition which Floyd Gibbons led carried the American flag across those trackless wastes, through blinding heat and blinding sandstorms and the hazards of men and beasts, till they came in triumph into Timbuctoo.  But he did not stop there; by boat he went on down the Niger to the coast, six hundred miles through the rankest swamps in the world and from there he turned to the south and kept on for 11,000 miles to the Cape.





Gibbons Goes Wherever There Is Trouble



As if all this were not enough, Floyd Gibbons was in the Balkans when there was trouble there, and with the Poles when they made a revolution.  He has jumped back and forth over the equator; he has seen the French close in on Abd-el-Krim; he has been in countries and seen people beyond the dream of any traveler.  He has known the lousy peasants of the Volga and the svelte aborigines of the South Sea Islands and the operetta officers of the Balkans.





Spiritual Blood Pressure High



What is the quality of this extraordinary man?  He belongs in the line of the great war correspondents—the obvious comparison is with the late Richard Harding Davis.  He is not in the strict sense an observer, for observing can be done with attention fixed on the pattern of a leaf; he is an adventurer and a spectator.  His spiritual blood-pressure is high; he must see life wherever it is running with a full, turbulent current, amid wars and rumors of wars.  Or, if these be not available, the imperious urge of his nature drives him to those exotic regions where men live on the dangerous edge of life, where they grasp like wolves for the primal necessities and where strange and irrational codes of conduct throw life into high relief.





FLOYD GIBBONS

America's Foremost War Correspondent




Author:  
And They Thought We Wouldn't Fight
; 
The Red Knight of Germany
; 
The Red Napoleon
; and Numerous Magazine Articles.




E
VER since Mr. Gibbons' extraordinary exploits in the World War, Mr. Gibbons has been in demand as a speaker.  Before an audience he displays the same dynamic force that has carried him through the most dangerous missions.  He is an extraordinarily good story teller with an infectious humor that captures every hearer.  A real personality is Floyd Gibbons whose radio appearances attract millions of hearers, every one of which is eager to see in person and hear face-to-face this colorful world figure.




SUBJECTS:



Hunting Headlines Around the World.


To Timbuctoo and Back.


Lost in the Sahara.


Torpedoed in Mid Atlantic.


With Revolutionists in Mexico, Ireland, Poland, Germany and Morocco.


Through Famine and Cholera in Russia.


An Escape from the Bolsheviks.


Adventures in the Air.


Ambushed by the Riff.


How It Feels to be Shot.






Floyd Gibbons As He Looks Today





Management THE ALBER BUREAU Louis J. Alber, President 3608 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, O. Long Distance HENderson 5616





As a War Correspondent






Gibbons in the Sahara






First American Flag to Cross the Sahara.  Gibbons on Camel Following the Flag