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Aviation History
1917
1917 - 0228.PDF
[/JJGHT MARCH 8, 1917. REFRESHING, indeed, is any book that comes to hand wherein the author has clearly and simply recorded happenings in a spontaneous vein of thought. Such a book is the latest addition to the aviatic library, War Flying, by " A Pilot." It is so delight- fully and simply expressed, so pleasing in its " boyish- ness," that one feels instinctively the rushing of the wind past the wires and struts ; the buffets on the face with which it greets the disturber of its way. Possibly the fact that the text is made up of letters written from the Front to the author's mother and published in book form accounts in some measure for its breeziness. Possibly, had the writer known that he was writing for publication, he would have fallen, as so many others have fallen, and attempted style. Possibly had he done so he would have spoiled the whole effort. The fact remains that he did nothing of the sort, and the result is a book that makes one hope this will not be a last effort. Let me take a few extracts from this book that breathes youth and boyish spirits, and British pluck. And let us remember that " Theta " is not yet 20 years old. This in the period of his training:— "It is cold and misty, and when not misty it is windy, when it is neither it rains and so on, but mist from the marshes is the worst by far. So sometimes we sits and thinks and cusses and smokes ; and sometimes we just sits." These from his private log-book :— " Stalled machine all round aerodrome. Wind screen completely frosted over ; had to take machine to 1,000 ft., lean out and clean screen. Same day got in hot air over factory chimneys. Hell! "A few weeks later :— " Second solo on new type. Side-slipped through turning without flying speed. Ghastly sensation." But it is in the letters when on active service that we get the best atmosphere :— " Dunno why the other squadron was mentioned in despatches. They have about seven of our chaps there— perhaps that's why—or perhaps the General lost some money at bridge to the CO., or perhaps they drew lots for it." Again :— " One could hear the bang of our big guns when they fired salvos under us, and at times we got bumps from the shells passing near us in the air. ... I don't know how near the shells pass. . . . They were not being shot at us." Nerves seem to be unknown to this " Eaglet," for on being sent out to take some photographs he after- wards indulges in looping for the first time. Just to see what it was like :— " I tried a dozen or so shots at it,"—the farmhouse he was sent to photograph—" and then, as I had reached a height of 6,000 ft., I thought I would try to do my first loop. " I shoved the nose down. 70-80-90-100 m.p.h. The Pitot tube did not register any higher ; the liquid went out at the top, . . . pulled the joy-stick back into my tummy, and up went the nose. . . . Gee, how slowly ske seems to be going. Ah, she's over at last. Cheer-o. New I'll write home and tell them. No, I must do another. If I did only one they would think I had funked it after tke first shot. Down goes the nose again, then up-up, and slower-slower. By Jove, she's going to stick at the top of the loop this time. ... I grip the joystick fiercely with both hands. Ah, she's over. Now I'll get off to the aerodrome and show them how to do it." As a matter of fact he did two more over the aerodrome, and then spiralled down. Not so bad for a first attempt. The author's own opinion is :— " I am quite bucked, though, at having done it, and it was a curious sensation, to say the least. I have been warmly congratulated ; they were d d good loops." Isn't this every bit a boy's doings ? " As I was going out of the aerodrome I flew over a passimg car and we waved merrily to each other. Then I chased the car, slowed my engine and dived at it, and a little later flew at it again. The driver must have been watching me too closely, for he went into the ditch. My passenger was awfully bucked about it." I could go on in this way until I had told you the whole book, so good is it, but will finish with the following:— " Well, I have little news for you this time. To let you down lightly, I will first tell you that I am having several new walking-sticks made, and with your usual Sherlock Holmes intelligence you will deduce, quite accurately, that I have carefully aad conscientiously reduced a B.E. 2 c to its mole- cular constituents—in other words, ' crashed it.' Don't worry, as I am perfectly all right and thoroughly enjoying life." There is room on my book-shelves for any other books " Theta " may care to write, so that he stick to his own way of writing, and I offer him congratula- tions and thanks. I could wish that his book had been published in stiff covers, as paper covers are my special abomination. Still, if the picture be good, perhaps it does not so greatly matter about the frame.' I think that if I were a drawer of pictures I should insist on choosing the frames myself, because the frame is a part of the picture in so far as it, as the case may be, helps on or destroys the effect aimed at. It seems to me that nobody has a right to frame another man's picture. Happily the writers of books do not have their tenderest feelings hurt through somebody else supplementing their work. An author writes his work and there it is, his from cover to cover. It is true that all covers are not beautiful, but they cannot deteriorate the work inside, which will please or otherwise, according to the skill of the author in setting down his thoughts in his own way, without reference to Brewster or anybody else as to how it should be done. The Move on Baupaume. WRITING to the Daily Mail from" France on March 2nd, Mr. W. Beach Thomas says :— " Here it is more than manifest that the German is off because he is afraid of losing men and losing positions, and he shows all the devices of the hunted creature. He is furtive and tricky; he moves only at night. 1 " Looking from an aeroplane by day you see no moving atom behind his trenches, but only lines upon lines of defences made by slave labour and bands of wire as much as 50 yards deep. These look like belts of young timber." Mr. Philip Gibbs, writing on the same date, said :— " The enemy is again favoured by the weather conditions. A sharp frost last night has condensed all the vapour from the waterlogged ground and caused a heavy fog over all the battlefields, preventing aeroplane and artillery observation." 228
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