Pat O'Brien

Pat O'Brien was an American World War I aviator and memoirist, usually identified as Patrick Alva O'Brien (1890–1920). He is remembered for Outwitting the Hun, published in 1918, a firsthand account of being shot down while serving with the British Royal Flying Corps, held as a prisoner, and eventually escaping.

Records for the book at the Library of Congress list him as "Pat O'Brien, -1920," and public-domain editions preserve the original framing of the book as his own wartime narrative. Later summaries of his life describe him as a pilot from Momence, Illinois, whose story drew attention because it combined air combat, captivity, and a dramatic return from behind enemy lines.

Because the surviving online material focuses much more on his wartime adventure than on his literary career, the clearest way to understand him as an author is through that memoir itself: a direct, personal war narrative written by someone who lived every part of it. He died young in 1920, which makes Outwitting the Hun the work for which he is chiefly remembered.