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Aviation History
1917
1917 - 0024.PDF
Bulgarian. . ' * Sofia, December 1 In the valley of the Vardar there was ineffective aero- plane activity by the. enemy." Sofia, December 30th. "In the region of Monastir there has been lively aerial activity. An enemy aeroplane was brought down cast of ' . '•', ~ JANUARY 4, 1917- ..'•>:.••' • ^: - •" - . ; -:" ••••-.. . . V'-'- +*' '.. ' '~ ' «• ' '' ' . " Monastir. Gn the Struma there has been ineffective activity by enemy aeroplanes." Turkish. Constantinople, December 21st. " Tigris Front.—One of our aeroplanes forced an enemy aeroplane to come down near the enemy's lines." Air Fighting in December. THE following interesting summary of the air fighting in December has been compiled by the Times :— " Owing, no doubt, to the suspension of fighting on a large scale, and also to the recent bad weather, the number of aeroplanes destroyed or driven down in a more or less damaged condition on the Western battle front was smaller in December than in any previous month since June. In that month 72 British French, and German machines fell into one or other* of these categories. For July the number was 165 ; August, 1K9; September, 322 , October, 171 ; November, 112. Last month the number, according to the daily communiques from 'British General Headquarters, the French Ministry of War, and Gtrnian Main Headquarters, was 94. " Of these 10 were British—admitted by General Head quarters ; 63 were German ; 2 1 were, if the enemy claims arc trustworthy, French. There are no means of checking the German claims, because in the first place they arc again, as in NTovetnber, made in the most general terms, no date or place being named in the official reports, ami. next, because the French Ministry of War does not, like our General Head- quarters, acknowledge IOBBCS in its Air Service. " The 63 German machines fell—35 to British airmen and 28 to French. Nine of the 35 were destroyed, one came down in our lines, four were driven down out of control and almost certainly wrecked, nine were driven down in a damaged con- dition, and 12 made forced landings. Practically all the 63 fell in aerial fighting, and it is a fair assumption from the particulars furnished in the French communic/uis that a large proportion of the 28 conquered by French airmen were destroyed. The German victories were won partly in air fights and partly by anti-aircraft gunfire, but there is no indi- cation of the respective proportions. " Two of the machines included in the total of 94—one . French and one German—were lost as the result of a collision during a fight." 1914 and 1916. IN an article in the Daily Telegraph contrasting the war conditions to-day with those of two years ago, Mr. Boyd Cable says :— " And finally, leaving the best to-the last, look at the air service we have to-day. Only the infantry know how much they owe the guns ; only the guns know how much they owe the airmen. In old times (for so we now speak of less than two years ago) the guns that were not most carefully con- cealed were practically doomed to destruction, the infantry that dared walk above ground in daylight within range of the enemy artillery was deliberately ' asking for it '—and rarely failed to get it. But now the artillery barely troubles about concealment, the infantry, the transport, the supply columns brazenly tramp or sit down and camp by thousands well within artillery range. They trust the airmen to keep off the piercing eyes that might betray their whereabouts to the destroying gunners, and seldom is their trust misplaced. A raiding German airman over our lines is not seen for weeks on end. The sky is never empty of ours, patrolling to and fro, casting in wide sweeps over the enemy ground, picking up gun positions, taking photos., mapping out the enemy trenches, coming and going—single, flimsy shapes against the sky, or flocks of anything up to a score. They are so many and so daring that now the enemy ' Archies,' or anti-aircraft guns, arc cliary even of trying to shell them, because if only they shell long enough one or other of the wheeling shapes will1 spot ' their flashes, dot down their position on the map, talk for a little with the wireless to their friends the gunners, and then wait, circling round, to watch the wrath to come visit those German ' Archies.' "It is a vastly different story when one of their airmen dares fly within range of our anti-aircraft guns. Our gunners, ' bored stiff,' they will tell you, with looking through a tele- scope all day and seeing nothing, are aching for their chance, and as the raider comes into long range the puffing shrapnel bursts begin to pattern the sky about him. Usually he turns promptly for home again ; if he carries on, he first slants steeply upwards, climbs and climbs until he is a mere speck in the sky, or is lost to naked-eye vision, and so sees nothing, or so little that it is not worth seeing, and decidedly not worth the risk. For there is risk a-pleuty for him, no matter how fast or high he flies. He may outclimb the ' Archies' ' shells, but he cannot outclimb our airmen, and they, once ' they see their quarry a-wing, are at and after him like hawks on a heron. -. . . " Two years ago, short of men, of munitions, of all the weapons of modern war, we held our own, and our line stood against the greatest weights that Germany could hurl against it. Now we are beginning to show what, on fair terms, we can do. The Navy has never lost its full command* of the seas, our flying men have regained their command of the air ; and now, on the shell-battered battle-fields, the Army is^ proving week by week (and setting on the proof the seal of captured prisoners, guns, and ground) the last link of the chain of victory. It may be this year, it may not be for yet another, but the end must be victory to the Allies, victory complete and absolute out and out—earth, air, and sea. Air Work in Mesopotamia. IN his despatch from the Tigris front, dated December 17th, Mr. Edmund Candler gives the following details of R.F.C. work in Mesopotamia :— " On the night of tlfe 14th- 15 th our aeroplanes flew over Kut by moonlight and dropped bombs on the enemy's bridge as it was being towed upstream in sections. Pontoons were cast adrift and scattered, and during the next day the Turks were unable to transport troops across the river except by ferrying. Throughout the operations our Flying Corps have put in excellent work in reconnaissance and gun-marking, and have engaged and driven back hostile aeroplanes. One of our machines, hit by a bullet, which broke a strut, descended between our cavalry and Shumran bridgehead, and was shelled by the guns. It had just been engaged in observing. The aviators escaped unhurt, and the machine was brought in without injury." Writing on December 26th, he says :— " The Flying Corps have been putting in good work. On December 21st nine machines carried out a bombing raid on Bagheila—a Turkish supply centre 20 miles upstream from Kut. All the machines returned undamaged after dropping a ton of bombs on shipping and dumps. On the 20th one of our airmen engaged a hostile Albatros over Kut, killed the observer, wounded the pilot, and brought the machine down with a crash. During the fight his engine was badly holed by rifle fire from the trenches, but he glided home safely behind our lines. He was decorated with the Military Cross by General Maude this morning. " On the morning of the 24th a captain was decorated with the D.S.O. for a daring night flight. He found a Turkish gunboat towing a pontoon bridge up-stream in sections from Shumran. He bombed her from a very low altitude, caused her to run aground and slip her tow. He returned to the aero- ;' drome for more bombs and again drove her into the bank and scattered the pontoon. He then returned a second time to the camp for bombs and repeated the performance. The three journeys kept him in the air from midnight to 6 a.m. !',. "Yesterday our aeroplanes bombed a hostile column marching towards Baghailah. Throughout the recent fighting aeroplane co-operation has rendered invaluable assistance to , ; the cavalry." ~~ • ." German Aircraft Activity in the Balkans. ..; THE Times correspondent with the Serbian Army, writing ,; on Dec. 21st, says :— " Moreover, the Germans are striving hard to regain the ascendency in the air, which they had so completely lost • •-• from the beginning of September to the end of November. :..*.] They have increased the number of their aircraft by the addition of several aeroplanes of the newest types, each carrying two machine guns, and now once more they are crossing our lines with comparative impunity. w " Four days ago one of these machines dropped a bomb close to a British lorry loading stuff for the Serbians by the roadside. The explosion only slightly damaged the lorry, but killed three of our Bulgarian prisoners who were engaged in loading it. The British driver and his assistant were uninjured." Another Raid on Zeebrugge. THE Telegraaf reports from the frontier that between half-past eleven and noon on the 27th an air attack was made on Zeebrugge. The aeroplanes were fired at from Knocke, Heyst, and Zeebrugge. 24
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