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Aviation History
1916
1916 - 0596.PDF
IMMELMANN'S T«B following account of the aerial combat, which resulted in the snooting down of Lieut. Immelmann, has been written by the Times correspondent at the British Headquarters :— " Before he left for England I had a talk with the pilot of the machine which vanquished Immelmann, and also with the observer, the man who did the actual shooting. It is one of the absurd chances of war that the great Immelmann (I think we can afford to call him that) should have been brought down by a man who had new been in an aeroplane before last February. "The pilot (who must be called, as he was called in the official notice, merely ' Lieut. McC) was, when I saw him, in hospital, and he is now in hospital in England. His injury, however, was not received in the historic fight, but in another encounter a week later, when he succeeded in getting, with the same observer, his second victim. The bullet, one of the latest armour-piercing bullets from the machine-gun in the German aeroplane, bad entered ' MCC.'K ' shoulder, passing down through the muscles of his arm, and remained lodged in the forearm. It was by his bedside as he lay. His comrades of the Flying Corps rejoice, of course, that he should have put an end to the career of the famous enemy airman ; but, from the professional point of view, it was a much finer feat when, with his right arm ripped as it was. in spite of pain and dizziness and loss of blood, with petrol tank shot through, he brought his machine and the observer safely and beautifully to earth in its home aerodrome. " These amazing fellows are so confident of their superiority in the air to-day that they know that it might have fallen to any one of them to bring down Immelmann. But to do what ' McC did in the later encounter when he got his machine so cleanly to earth and then collapsed as it landed—that was a performance of which any man could be proud. " lie looked, as he is, very young ; all the younger, perhaps, be cause ' McC is extremely fair and was additionally pale after his injury and some three days in hospital. He seemed to think that having got his enemy in that particular fight was rather a matter of course, and it was just an extraordinary piece of luck that enemy was Immelmann. " He went up on the fateful morning for his usual daily patrol in his battleplane with his usual observer, whom, following also the official announcement, we must merely speak of as ' Non-Commis- sioned Officer W.' They saw Lieutenant Savage patrolling his adjoining l*at, and also they saw far overhead three Fokkers. By this time ' McC was some 8,000 ft. up. The Fokkers, after their custom, had l>een waiting behind their lines at some 13,000 ft. Just as ' McC.' saw them one of the three dived and went down to earth ; while the other two dropped straight for Lieutenant Savage. ' McC.' and ' W.' both supposed that the third machine was only foing down to get below and join in the fight from another angle, lut ' McC.V business was to go for what he saw; and that was ® ® Overseas Delegates at Farnborough. THE Delegates from the Oversea Dominion Parliaments, who are now paying a visit of war inspection to the country as the guests of the Empire Parliamentary Association, were at Farn borough on Saturday. They witnessed several flights by R.F.C. officers, and subsequently were conducted round the Royal Aircraft Factory by Col. Mervyn O'Gorman, C.B. The War Inventions Board. IT is announced that Vice-Admiral Sir Richard H. Peirse, K.C.B., M.V.O., has been appointed Naval Member of the Central Committee of the Board of Invention and Research. R.F.C Wireless Workers at Play. AT the A.A.A. military sports at Stamford Bridge on Saturday the R.F.C. Wireless Section team finished second to the Army Service Corps (M.T.) Grove Park team in the one mile relay race. The winning team was the Australian sprinter, C. J. Mears, the world's champion. Private W. R. Applegarth, P. Hodge, and S. Wood, while the R.F.C. team was P. E. Mann, F. Gaby, Saul, and the old Army champion, Sergeant F. Mawby. The Edward Busk Studentship. APPLICATIONS will shortly be invited for the above Aeronautical Research Studentship. The remuneration will be at a rate not exceeding ,£150 per annum for a period of one year, with an exten sion in special circumstances to two years. Further particulars can be had from the Aeronautical Society, II. Adam Street, Adelphi, W.C. A Thank Offering. A PLAQUB was unveiled at St. Mary's Church, Ramsgate, on Sunday, as a memorial of *' the church's preservation on the night of the first Zeppelin raid, when bombs from hostile aircraft Tell close to the building." Mr. Pemberton Billing Joins Up. ON Friday of last week Mr. Pemberton Billing, M.F., in response to an official notice, attended at Stratford, and was duly LAST FIGHT. the two Fokkers, which were dropping, like hawks after their prey, on his comrade's machine. " Lieutenant Savage also dived to avoid the first rush of the two attackers, so that the actual fight took place at about 5,5°? ft- : and down at one sheer drop for 2,500 ft. went ' McC.' to join in. It is a dizzying thing even to think of, the two birds of prey plung ing through the almost illimitable space on the quarry below, and ' McC.' sweeping after them to his comrade's help. As he drew near he saw that he was already too late to bring help ; only retri bution remained. As he dropped, he saw Lieut. Savage's machine get out of control and then go plumb down to earth. Evidently the pilot himself had been shot from the foremost of the two Fokkers which had dived straight down for the tail of the British machine. ' McC.' followed no leas straight. Before Immelmann had begun to steady himself from his victorious plunge ' McC." was on him. He took no chance of firing from a safe distance, but went straight in, confident in his observer's nerve, and it was not until he was almost touching the other machine' that ' W.' fired. At the very first round the enemy was hit. The machine seemed suddenly to bank, turned clean over on its right side, and then went down like a stone. " Meanwhile the second Fokker had swung round, and in its turn was coming for ' McC.' The latter swerved, and circled to get inside the enemy; but no shot was exchanged. ' McC did not know who was in the machine which had fallen. Doubtless the occupant of the other Fokker did ; and, knowing that Immel mann was gone, either had not the heart or the nerve to continue the fight, so he dropped down after his lost comrade. "It was all a very gallant and very thrilling affair. In the fight of the following week, when ' McC.,' again with ' W.,' was one of five British battleplanes which met five Fokkers and brought down two of them, while all car machines came safely back, except for ' McC.'s' injury to his arm, the thing was on an even more heroic scale. But it has not the glamour of the fight which was Immel- mann's last. "At the squadron aerodrome, not far from where 'McC.' was in hospital, I saw the battle-scarred machine in which he made his flights. It is not the veteran of the squadron ; for that is another of the same type which has over 200 patches on its planes where enemy bullets have gone through. ' McC.'s' machine, however, is bad enough ; and, besides all the peppering of the planes, you can see plainly the hole where the bullet went through which caught him in the shoulder, while there are other holes in the body of the machine which narrowly missed being even more serious. "When I was there two large wreaths of flowers lay on the ground stitched up in canvas. One was for Lieut. Savage and the other for Immelmann. That night it was the intention that they should be dropped by aeroplane into the enemy's aerodrome." ® ® enrolled for " garrison duty at home.'' He received the customary 2s. yd., but as he was given indefinite leave we venture to think— and hope—that this will be the close of this incident in the M.P.'s life. Fatal Accidents. WHIEE flying on the East Coast of Scotland about 9 p.m. on July 5th, an aeroplane fell in a field in a lonely district. The pilot, named Hamel, was instantly killed, and the passenger, named Berry, severely injured. Flight Lieut. Wallis was also killed in the east of Scotland. It is stated that he was flying comparatively low across a railway when a train dashed by. The aeroplane dived to the ground, and the pilot was instantly killed. A double fatality occurred near Whitstable on July 8th. After circling over the town, the machine in coming down suddenly nose dived and fell to the ground. The pilot was killed, while the passenger died on the way to the hospital. Gallant Rescues by Pilots. TIMELY aid by Messrs. Sidney C. Lambert and Eric G. Adams, two pilots, led to the rescue of two girls, who were thrown out of a canoe which capsized on the Thames near Reading. The pilots dived in in full uniform. Unfortunately a third girl was drowned. M Airy Fairy Lilian," or the Pull of the Plane. AMONG other items discovered in the room of Lilian Hargreaves —with an alias—charged at Blackpool with stealing ,£134 from her employer, a boarding-house keeper, were receipts for three trips in aeroplanes at two guineas a time. Zeppelins and Dutch Ships. ACCORDING to the Haudelsblad, the Dutch schooner " Weldaad," of Groningen, which arrived at Ymuiden from Karlskrona on Sunday, reports that she was attacked by a Zeppelin six miles off the Horn Reefs. The bomb which was dropped exploded in the sea.
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