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Aviation History
1915
1915 - 0727.PDF
SEFTEMBUR 24, 1915. able to diminish the dangers in the iuture, to increase the security, and to enable his Majesty's lieges to sleep comfortably in their beds. But do not let us ask too much, either of Sir Percy Scott, or the aircraft section of the Admiralty, or of the guns, even when they come in in sufficient numbers. I do not promise this House—I do not promise the country—that there will not be a continuance of these raids, and that on the occasions when they succeed there will not be suffering and injury inflicted upon a certain number of innocent individuals. But if anybody suggests that the nerves of the country are going to be shaken, if anybody suggests that we are •looking with national alarm upon this prospect, if anybody suggests that these methods of terrorism are going to have the smallest influence one way or another—except it be to make the flame of righteous indignation burn hotter within us—then I say they are ® ® BRITISH FLYERS THE following extracts from an article by Mr. Arthur Ruhl, the American correspondent with the Turkish Army, give a glimpse of the work of the British flying officers as seen from the enemy's side:— " Several flyers were creeping about far up against the blue, looking for just such hidden batteries as that which kept barking behind us, and out in front and to the right came the low Br—r—um—m ! of heavy guns " I awoke shortly after daylight, thinking I heard an aeroplane strumming in the distance, and was drowsily wondering whether or not it was fancy, when a crash echoed up the valley. We both hurried out. It was sunup, a delicious morning, and far up against the southern sky the little speck was sailing back toward the west. There was a flash of silver just under the flyer—it was an English biplane—and a moment later another crash further away. Neither did any damage. " A few minutes later we were looking at the remains of the bomb and propeller-like wings, whose whirling, as it falls, opens a valve that causes it to explode on striking its mark. Until it had fallen a certain number of metres, mere striking the ground would not explode it—a device to protect the airman in case of accident to his machine or if he is forced to make a quick landing. " In the fresh, still morning, with the camp just waking up and the curious Turkish curry-combs clinking away over by the tethered horses, our aerial visitor added only a pleasant excitement to this life in the open, and we went on with our dressing with great satis faction, little dreaming how soon we were to look at one of those little flying specks quite differently. " Finally we went aboard a sort of enlarged tug which might be going up that afternoon or evening. " It was about midday. The sun blazing down on the crowded flat ; on boxes, sacks, stevedores wrapped up in all the variegated rags of the East shuffling in and out of the ships ; on gangs digging, piling lumber, boiling water, cooking soup; officers in brown uniforms and brown lambswool caps ; on horses, ox teams, and a vast herd of sheep, which had just poured out of a transport and spread over the plain, when from the hill came two shots of warning. "The gangs scattered like water-bugs when a stone is thrown into the water. They ran for the hill, dropped into trenches ; to the beach, and threw themselves flat on the sand ; into the water— all, as they ran, looking over their shoulders to where, far overhead, whirred steadily nearer that tiny, terrible hawk. " A hidden battery roared, and—pop !—a little puff of cotton floated in the sky under the approaching flyer. Another and another—all the nervous little batteries in the hills round about were coming to our rescue. The bird-man, safely above them, drew on without flinching. We had looked up at aeroplanes many times before and watched the pretty chase of the shrapnel, and we leaned out from under the awning to keep the thing in view. ' Look,' I said, ' she's coming right over us !' And then, all at once, there was a crash, a concussion that hit the ear like a blow, a geyser of smoke and dust and stones out on the flat in front of us. Through the smoke I saw a horse with its pack undone and flopping under its belly, trotting round with the wild aimlessness of horses in the bull ring after they have been gored. Men were running, and, in a tangle of wagons, half a dozen oxen, on the ground, were giving a few spasmodic kicks. " Men streaked up from the engine-room and across the wharf— after all the wharf would be the thing he'd try for—and I found myself out on the flat with them just as there came another crash, but this time over by the Barbarossa across the bay. Black smoke was pouring from the Turkish cruiser as she got underway, and, [TycHf] mistaken. Those are not the sentiments with which our countrymen are going to regard these enemies' attacks, whether legitimate or illegitimate. I look forward to the future with perfect serenity so far as real injury to the country is concerned, and so far as sufferings to individuals are concerned, 1 have every hope that the efforts of the Admiralty may lead to a great and salutary diminution of any danger which may now be anticipated. Sir A. Mond said he was sure the House had heard with great pleasure the statement of the right hon, gentleman with regard to aerial attacks. This form of warfare was so novel, and its improvements were so rapid, that no one could blame him or his department if our arrangements were by no means perfect. What they were concerned with was not so much immunity from attack as some certainty of doing damage to the enemies' aircraft when they came over here. ® ft OVER GALLIPOLI. with the shrapnel puffs chasing hopelessly after, the flyer swung to the southward and out of sight. " Officers were galloping about yelling orders ; over in the dust where the bomb had struck a man was sawing furiously away at the throats of the oxen (there were seven of them, and there would be plenty of beef in camp that night, at any rate); there was a dead horse, two badly wounded men, and 100 ft. away a man lying on his face, hatless, just as he had been blown there ; dead, or as good as dead. " It appeared that two airmen had come from opposite directions and most of the crowd had seen but the one, while the other dropped the bomb. It had struck just outside the busiest part of the camp, aimed very likely at the stores piled there. It had made a hole only 5 or 6 ft. wide and 3 or 4 ft. deep, but it had blown everything in the neighbourhood out from it, as the captain had said. Holes you could put your fist in were torn in the flanks of the oxen, and the tyres of some of the wagons, 60 or 70 ft. away, had been cut through like wax. " With a curious sense that the bottom had somehow fallen out of things—even the blue above was treacherous—and that one of those things which only happen to other people not only could, but was going to, happen to us right here and now, we watched the men go back to work and the afternoon wear on. We even went for a swim. " At every unexpected noise one looked upward, and when about 5 o'clock the crowd scattered again, 1 will confess that I watched that little speck buzzing nearer, on a line that would bring him straight overhead, with an interest considerably less casual than any I had bestowed on these birds before. There we were, confined in our little amphitheatre ; there was that diabolical bird peering down at us, and in another minute, somewhere in that space, would come that earth-shaking explosion—a minglng of crash and whouff'. There was no escaping it, no dodging it, nothing to get under but empty air. " I had decided that the beach, about a hundred yards away from the wharves, was the safest place and hurried there ; but the speck overhead, as if anticipating me, seemed to be aiming for the precise spot. It is difficult under such circumstances to sit tight, reasoning calmly that after all the chances of the bomb's not landing exactly there are a good many to one—you demand at least the ostrichlike satisfaction of having something overhead. So I scurried over to the left to get out from under what seemed his line of flight, when what should he do but begin to turn ! This was really rubbing it in a bit. To fly across as he had that morning was one thing, but to pen one up in a nice little pocket in the hills, and then on a radius of three or four thousand yards circle round over one's head —anything yet devised by the human nightmare was crude and immature to this. " Was it overhead ? No, behind, but it was travelling at 5° or 60 miles an hour, and the bomb would carry forward—just enough probably to bring it over; and if over, still the bomb would be several seconds in falling—it might be right on top of us now ! Should we run backward or forward ? Here was a place, in between some grain bags. But the grain bags were open toward the whari, and the wharf was what he was aiming at, and a plank blown through you— No, the trench was the thing, but— Quick, he is overhead ! " The beach, the bags, the ditch, all the way round the camp, was ever anything more inglorious ? Somewhere in the middle of it a hideous whiffling wail came down the sky: Trrou .... trrou .... trrou !—and then a crash ! The bomb had hit the water just off the end of the pier. I kept on running. There was another Trrou .... trrou ! another geyser of water, and the bird had flown on." 727
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