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Aviation History
1917
1917 - 1029.PDF
OCTOBER 4, 1917. 5,1 ' " CARRY ON " was the only response last week end from a seamen's meeting at the Albert Hall, when warning of the approach of Hun air raiders was announced. Lord Beresford was the kind of chairman to accept the order without even a show of hands, and characteristically his method, greeted with vociferous applause, was : " We are very much obliged to the War Office for their warning. We shall not take the slightest notice of it. We shall go on with the meeting." And the gathering " carried on " accordingly. JUDGING by the following paragraph circulated to the Press, it was an extra " foul " raid that of Tuesday last week : " Persons whose fowls Were killed in Tuesday's air raid on the South-East London district should write to Mr. W. G. Tarbet, Secretary of the National Utility Poultry Society, 3, Vincent Square, S.W.I, who is prepared to replace the birds." AIR-RAID damage does not look much like ever becoming a subject for Imperial compensation, having regard to a reply of the Home Office to the Kingston-on-Thames Cor- poration, to the effect that emergency expenses incurred in connection with air raids, such as preventing danger from damaged buildings or rescuing people from the ruins, should be paid from local funds. Looks as if all those accumulated fines inflicted by the Kingston Bench, during their systematic " raids " on motorists for the past 20 years, might come in useful now. MORE Hun " frightfulness." One German raiding aeroplane last week, after passing through our defence gunfire in an Essex district, let loose a stream of petrol over a wide area in the eastern part of a town, just to show, no doubt, how they can afford to waste things, and thus make folk in Britain desperate at their terrible conditions, compared with the -Central Empires. ROBERT JAMES, atat 97, a tenant on the estate of the Hon. Lionel Walrond, Uffculme, Devon, might, if he be not a strict George Washingtonian, plausibly claim that he foresaw 80 years ago the coming of aviation and helped to provide for its advent, when he planted a number of aspen trees and then " squatted " in his near-by cottage until now, when he at long last is taking a hand in felling those self- same trees for aeroplane construction. " AND didn't the guns make the stars jump 1 " was a 'child's description of the phenomena of one of the night raids last week. WHATEVER else Mr. Lloyd George may be accused of, he certainly can plead not guilty to being a poltroon. To suggest that the Prime Minister skipped off from his official •duties to Walton Heath when the raiders were announced AS on their way to London on Monday last week is so obviously the opposite of what Lloyd George would do that the statement in a London evening to that effect hardly required refuting. But perhaps it is just as Well some action should be instituted, if only by way of protest to the scandalous attacks which are still levelled broadcast at some of our greatest patriots, who are fearlessly doing their duty to the Nation, however distasteful their action may be to certain sections of the community, Whose personal interests may be •adversely interfered with for the general good. There are a few folk who well deserve a drastic lesson. WHEN there is any special information to be gleaned as to ways and means of some of our heroes, King George is ever keen to have the data direct from the individual soldier concerned. Thus last Week in connection with the Investiture of V.Cs. and other Honour recipients, Lieut. Insall, V.C., had an opportunity of giving His Majesty the details of his recent escape from Germany, &c, and it may have been noticed that again, on Thursday, Lieut. G. F. Knight, Devonshire Regt., attached R.F.C., and Lieut. C. F. L. Templer, Gloucestershire Regt., had special audience of the King, when they told at Buckingham Palace their little stories of how they managed to elude the vigilance of their Hun gaolers. LIEUT. G. F. KNIGHT'S adventures, as related to a friend, are as follows : He was on a bombing raid near Bapaume, when his controls were shot away and he had to land well behind the enemy's front line. He was then taken to Cambrai citadel. " I had not been there long before," said Lieut. Knight, " I set about to escape. Opportunity came sooner than I expected. I got through the German lines at night in a suit of the Belgian-peasant sort and swam the Cambrai Canal. When I was almost over I spotted a Boche sentry on the opposite bank. He heard me in the water and looked hard in my direction. It flashed through my1 1I * 0 I*1- *1 #11 '1 i^^^Bv" H •--••--••' • ^H^^^•pv • >S •^^H>. ^K «*< H •i ' ^^^^ • 1 The late Capt. Guynemer, the champion French " Ace," who was reported missing on September 11th. According to the German paper, the Gazette des Ardennes, he was shot down and killed on that date, and a German pilot who has been taken prisoner by the Canadians has told the same story. IO29
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