FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1918
1918 - 0236.PDF
fc <S^3££b typical of Hun mentality. The aviator had taken part in a recent raid on London. On the return journey his machine was crippled and he was forced to descend in France. The crew were captured, and it was found that one of them was badly injured in the knee. He was sent to a hospital, where he boasted of the ruin and deaths caused by German bombs in London. Two nights later an air raid by his own comrades took place in the neighbourhood of the hospital in which he - lay. So terror-stricken was the wounded man that he clam- bered out of bed and tried to seek refuge in a room below. In his condition of helplessness and fright he fell headlong down the stairs, sustaining fatal injuries. It strikes us that the result is a good riddance of such a warrior, who is so little unable to appreciate the piquancy of goose sauce when applied to the gander. IT does not appear~to be an unreasonable request which the London authorities are being asked to urge upon the Govern- ment, to reimburse the cost, whole or a part of making good ^ KENSINGTON . 'WAR SAVINGS WEEK „ ^J February 4th to 9th. 1918 ^ ff BUY WAR SAVINGS^ . CERTIFICATES * ^ & WAR BONDS * »J> Aad at. al.y VOUR part In Clvltliatlon'a <W C* Qmt Struggla a^T Ovp Ballanl Soldi.ra. Br.y. Sillon and Oaring Airman WILL 00 THE REST One of the discs (half size) which were scattered broadcast in con- nection with the Kensington War Savings Week, from a British naval airs hip. damage done by enemy bombs to public buildings, sewers, and other underground works. It is surely a National item which might well go into the six or seven million odd daily war bill. APROPOS the note the other week, as to Krupps being rebuilt underground, Mr. Franklin C. Murdock, a well-known engineer who has recently arrived in New York from the German border, re-affirms this to be a fact. Southern Germany, south of Dusseldorf, is dark at night, he says, and this is already having its effect on the German people. The cities were darkened early in January for the first time since the outbreak of the war, and people realise that this is not a sign of victory. " BUY WAR BONDS " is a suggestive slogan which our postal authorities have recently copied from our American Allies, as an obliterating stamp on letters through the post. A second one which has now made its appearance in the United States is practical and should be very helpful to this country in mitigating its meagre, but healthy, war ration- ing, " Food will win the war ; don't waste it " is how the new obliterating legend runs. It might well be grafted on to our cancelling stamps, to alternate with the " Buy War Bonds" brand. Each is as important as the other in engendering the " will to win the war " spirit into the entire nation. IT'S a hellish story our French contemporary L'Homme Libre published last week in regard to the tearing away from their homes of a thousand hostages (Mme. Reuter, wife of the manager of the Longwy Steel Works, being amongst the number, it is said) by the German military authorities in Northern France ior internment in Holzminden camps. These wretched victims, our contemporary asserts, on the authority of a reliable witness, were subjected to the most infamous treatment. Some 30 women hostages, who refused to make sacks for the enemy, were shut up in Shed No. 13 FEBRUARY 28, 1918. —unlucky 13 again—without food and without daylight. They remained there from August 13th—the 13 again—to September 19th, 1917, and would have starved had not food been smuggled in from time to time by charitable hands. They were forbidden any article of toilet from 4 p.m. to midnight. As they refused to capitulate, their matresses and bed coverings were taken away, and, finally, their woollen underwear. Their martyrdom was cut short by a providential visit to the camp by a delegate of the Spanish Legation at Brussels. They were released one hour before his arrival, but he was informed all the same of these revolting facts. The following is the text of an order "' for the women's camp," dated September 14th, 1917 :— " The measures taken in regard to the inmates of Shed 13 have not yet produced any result. Consequently, in agree- ment with the camp commander, I order that these women receive no letters, cards or parcels. Moreover, they are to remain without bed coverings and pallets. I shall punish without pity, those (feminine) who pass them forbidden articles, and especially food. " (Signed) Letule, Lieutenant Assistant to Camp Officer." MAJOR BAIRD, when paying a tribute to the work of instruc- tors, in the House of Commons, said the position had thus been bluntly summed up by an officer of great experience :—• " They spsnd many hours every fine day in the air with a young man who is doing his best, quite unintentionally, but nevertheless with disconcerting determination, to break their necks." VIRTUE its own reward. A boy, charged at the Guildhall on Saturday, with stealing a cheque for £22 belonging to his employers, had several very iucky escapes in air raids. A bomb fell in the back garden of his home and blew out the window of the kitchen where he was sheltering. On the night he stole the cheque he was sheltering in an archway when a bomb dropped and killed some people standing near, but he received no injury other than shell shock. Taking the view that the shock had temporarily upset the boy's mental balance, the magistrate sent him home with his father. ONE of the German pilots who participated in the recent air raid on Paris, in an account in the Berlin Lokal-Anzeiger of his experiences during this trip, says : " Suddenly the French put ' lanterns ' in our way. Above and beneath us, ahead and astern, they hung quietly in the air, and with their blinding glare lighted up our planes. They are rockets with parachutes provided with very brightly burning fuses. Some special mechanism enables them to remain steady for a full minute in the air. Sometimes dozens together appeared near us to show our machines to the anti- aircraft guns." TEN YEARS AGO. Excerpts from the " Auto." (" FLIGHT'S " precursor and sister Journal) of February, 1908. " FLIGHT " was founded at the latter end of 1908. U.S. ARMY AEROPLANES. Following our announcement, in our issue of January 18th, that the U.S. Army had invited tenders for heavier-than-air flying machines, comes the news that Mr. Taft, Secretary for War, approved the recommendation by the Board of Ordnance accepting three bids to supply the Government with aero- planes. Among the tenders is, it is announced, one from the Brothers Wright, for a flying machine, to be delivered within 200 days at a cost of ^5,000. GASTAMBIDE-MENGIN AEROPLANE.. On Saturday, February 8th, the Gastambide-Mengin aero- plane was taken out to make its first attempt at flight, and was so far successful as to rise from the ground to an altitude of some 5 metres, and make a jump through the air of about the same distance. The sudden termination of the embryo flight was brought about purposely by the mechanician, Boyer, who switched off the ignition in order to avoid a tendency to capsize. "X 90" Raid (February 17th-18th). THE official Press Bureau on February 20th announced that the total casualties caused in the air raid of the night of February 17th-18th, were: Killed, 19 ; injured, 34. \merican Fighting Machines Coming. IT was announced in Washington on February 21st by Mr. Baker, the U.S. Secretary for War, that the first American- built battleplanes are en route for France, nearly five months ahead of the scheduled time. These planes have the first Liberty motors from machine production, one of which in a recent test is said to have surpassed all records for speed climbing for planes of that type. The engine production which began a month ago is now on a quantity basis, and the highest point of production will be reached in a few weeks. Only the 12-cylinder type was being made, as developments abroad had made it wise to concentrate on the high-powered engines instead of the 8-cylinder ones. Mr. Baker added that in the past month the latest types of foreign machines had been adapted to American manu- facture. The industry had increased at least twenty-fold, the training machine problem had been solved, and the production of fighting aeroplanes had begun. 232
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
