FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1914
1914 - 1027.PDF
with the information given by their ranging shells. Twelve shells were fired, all at a greater height than the aeroplane, as if the design were to scatter balls on it from above. Changing its course occa sionally the aeroplane flew about, completed its work, and winged its way back to the Belgian lines. Its passage in safety under bursting shrapnel was one of the most exciting warfare incidents imaginable." A correspondent of the Daily Call sent the following from Amsterdam on the 4th inst. :— " Information has been received here from Berlin that the Kaiser has promised to confer a special decoration of the second class of the Order of the Red Eagle on the first German aviator who succeeds in dropping explosives on London. " Other lesser, but still unusual, honours are promised to German aviators who succeed in dropping explosives either on a British warship or on some other town in England." In a message from Deal to the Daily Chronicle the following information was given regarding the adventures of Lieut. Rainey, who belongs to the Royal Naval Air Service, who arrived from France in a battle-scarred machine:— " Lieutenant Rainey has been engaged for the past three weeks in reconnoitring at the front, and so little leisure has he been able to snatch that, as he told his friends here, during the whole of that time he oould not remove his clothes, or even secure a wash. " He had two machinesidisabled by rifle and shell fire, whilst a third caught fire in mid-air. On each of these occasions he very narrowly escaped fatal disaster. " His flights lasted for many hours together, and on one occasion he was in the air for 24 hours at a stretch. _ " Once when he came down he was so exhausted that he lay with his head on his aeroplane and fell fast asleep. On waking he was surprised to find that the puttee, boot and sock of one leg had been removed by someone who, as the lieutenant himself suggested, took the opportunity of his slumber to secure them as mementoes. " Lieut. Rainey brought home with him a German helmet belonging to a man he shot, and he proudly claimed that it was the first trophy of the kind taken by a British airman. " After securing a new machine Lieut. Rainey is returning to the front." An official report issued in Tokio on Saturday stated :— " A German aeroplane at Tsingtao twice attempted to attack the Japanese vessels, but without result. A Japanese aeroplane, pur suing it, attacked with bombs a captive balloon just being hauled back to Tsingtao, it is not known with what damage." The following resume of an interesting article in the Bourse Gazette describing the capture of the Zeppelin Z 5 by the Russians, was wired from Petrograd by the correspondent of the Daily Telegraph on Saturday :— " Our cavalry brigade, with a horse battery, was proceeding in marching order from the village of , near Soldau, in the direction of the suburb of . As the brigade was approaching the frontier cordon a German airship was seen steering straight for us from the direction of Mlava. As the commander of the battery was at that moment with the chief of the division at the tail of the column fire was at once opened at this enticing target, but the shots appeared to fall short. The range was increased, and at the third volley the airship began to assume a vertical inclination. This, as was shown later, was due to the breaking of the stabilisator and rudder by our fire. However, the airship continued on its course towards the German frontier, though travelling slowly, and dis appeared behind a wood to the left of the battery. " Without losing a moment the guns were taken round the wood at the gallop, and renewed their fire. While they were on their way the airship flung down bombs at them, but without any success. It then directed a machine gun upon them, but the bullets fell short, and did no damage. " From the new position only one volley was fired, as the dirigible now stopped for a moment, and then was carried back by the wind towards the south. Quickly the battery galloped back to its first position, whence the airship was finally disabled, and com pelled to descend within three miles of the village of Lipovitz. Several cavalry men, with the senior officer of the battery, were sent to receive the prize, but when they reached the airship they found they had been anticipated by a Cossack patrol, which seemed to have sprung out of the ground. The prisoners taken were the commander of the Zeppelin, Captain of Airship Battalion Gruener, Lieut. Wilhelm Rehling, the mechanic, and four soldiers. One officer and two lower grades somehow had time to hide in the neighbouring village, but were discovered on the following day. Thus the whole crew of ten were captured. Lieut. Rehling had torn off his officer's epaulets in order to conceal his rank. Only one officer and soldier were wounded, but the apparatus had been badly damaged in the air. The rudder, propellers, benzine tubes, motors, and stabilisator had all suffered, and the hull had been pierced in several places. " According 10 the admissions of CapMin Gruener, the airship was vitally injured by our first discharge, but its diiigibility was completely destroyed by the fire from the second position. When our artillery commander asked, ' How could you dare to steer so impudently direct for our battery?' Gruener replied that he had more than once been under cannon fire, and had always come out successfully. " The hull was eventually blown up by our cavalry, but a large number of trophies were carried off. They included an army flag, with the name 'Zeppelin 5' and the embroidered Prussian eagle insignia of the order ' Pour la M&rite,' two machine guns, a machine rifle, four motors, many plans, maps, sketches, documents, photo graphic apparatus, and forty signal rockets. All the bombs had already been used. Some of them had been thrown on to Mlava Station, where several of our soldiers were killed by them." In this connection the Morning Post correspondent at Petrograd on Monday wrote :— " A German Zeppelin, or rather its remains, has been brought to Petrograd and carefully examined by experts. This is one of Germany's huge airships, brought down by fire from the Russian batteries in the neighbourhood of Warsaw. Russian aviators, although little has been allowed to be known of them, have been doing admirable work on all the fronts since the beginning of the war. I heard an interesting account of one of the most distinguished of Russia's aviators, who early in the war flew over and beyond Konigsberg, where he was compelled to come down by something going wrong with the engine. He landed in a German village, and was immediately surrounded by alarmed peasants, to whom he explained in German that the Cossacks were coming, and he had flown ahead to warn ihe country. A general panic ensued, but a few valiant yokels were persuaded to remain and assist the gallant aviator to put things right and then start his engine. He returned to his own lines all right, with some highly valuable observations." Writing on Monday, a correspondent of the Daily Mail thus describes how some French gunners deceived German aviators :— " So quiet have things been that some of the French troops, for want of anything better to do, have been playing tricks on the enemy. Some artillery drivers with the help of»a handful of sapper said to themselves one day : ' It is a pity these German aeroplanes should not have something to report. Let us give them something.' " So they got a tree-trunk, hollowed it out a little, fixed it up 00 a cart as if it were a gun, with other trunks near it; then put some straw in the hollow, and, when a " Taube" came over, grouped themselves as if they were artillerymen firing, and lit the straw with a little powder, which made a fine flash and puff. " Immediately the " Taube " let off a smoke bomb to give the German gunners the range, and soon a bombardment of the tree- trunk began, the drivers and sappers having meanwhile got well into shelter, where they looked at the waste of royal and imperial ammunition with great joy ! They declare they played this trick three times." Mr. G. H. Perris telegraphing to the Daily Chronicle on Monday records a piece of useful work accomplished as the result of an aeroplane reconnaissance :— "At one point to which German reinforcements were being brought a column of Lancers (name cut out by Censor) inter vened effectually. •* An aviator had brought news that while two reconstituted divi sions of infantry of the Prussian Guard were advancing by road, with cavalry and the usual accompaniments, their heavy artillery was being brought up by railway. "The Lancers spent a watchful night in ambush beside the line, and at 4 o'clock in the morning successfully blew up the train with a mine they had prepared. A New York World cable reported on Monday :— " The Russian main army is now in complete readiness to strike a blow at the enemy which is coming within its grasp. Russian aeroplanes yesterday morning flew over the German positions, and though they encountered German aeroplanes and were frequently fired at from the land and in the air they returned safely to their own lines with full reports of the enemy's positions." 102.7
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
