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Aviation History
1918
1918 - 0940.PDF
AUGUST 22, 1918. IV.—ANOTHER EXTRAORDINARY INCIDENT IN THE ORDINARY LIFE OF ORDINARY PILOTS. who was being " shot up " by two Huns. Not good enough, he decided, and held on his course, but going as slowly as he dared. When about four thousand feet up and about two miles from the lines, the leader saw the back man put down his nose, and dive steeply into the fog below the rest of the formation. The rest of the formation crossed the trenches safely, came down through the fog, picked up their bearings, and tfew back to the aerodrome. , When they got back, all corroborated the leader's report about the Huns, but all differed as to what had occured to H—, who was the back man. Some said he could not have reached the lines, others that he would be in the trenches, others that he would never be heard of again, that he was certain to have been killed. Suddenly this "mothers' meeting," where everyone was shouting and talking at once was broken up by another pilot who rushed up, and gasped out in short breaths the statement that H— had landed at C- TO-DAY we had a comic show, at least we only found it comic afterwards. At first we thought it was going to be a case of another of in the casualty list. However, all's WBII that ends well. This evening the Flight did a long O.P. (I am not going to say again what O.P. means. Everyone who reads " FLIGHT " ought to know by now, and if they don't they would be better employed studying " Bassinette Literature" rather than " FLIGHT "). The sun was well down in the west, there was a cloudless sky, and a thick haze which made it impossible to see anything at all of the ground, looking westward, in fact one could only just see the ground below one, above three thousand feet. The patrol branched off down south, crossed the lines in of A , with a good wind blowing them over into " Hun- land," and a good haze which prevented " Archie " being able to practise his wiles on the patrol. The only way the leader could keep his bearings was to steer -by the sun, with occasional glimpses of trenches or ruined villages below. After going east for about five minutes, machines suddenly seemed to appear from nowhere in ones or twos, both above and below the patrol. The leader kept his eyes well open, and watched Hun machines collecting by twos and threes up in the sun between the patrol and the lines, about five thousand feet above the patrol, which was then flying about nine thousand feet. As the patrol got above D—— they saw a formation of six Huns below them gliding down to their aerodrome, and a comfortable hot tea, or whatever the Huns have instead of tea. I have heard that their favourite dish at about five " Pip Emma" is " Roast Rumpler," both economical in ingredients and tasty to eat. The recipe is as follows ; Take a crashed Rumpler, reduce it to pulp (if this has not already been done by the pilot), add boiling glycerine produce (Leave you to guess what factory that comes from), stir gently and serve up same in a well seasoned flying cap. This dish is highly thought of by the Higher Command, being well "Forte " to the palate. To continue; Tea seemed a long way off to all the pilots just then. They were ten miles over, about eighteen Huns above, between them and home, while there were six Huns " cold meat" below them, but all knew it would be asking for trouble to dive, because if the six Camels once started down, all the Huns from above would come down like a ton of bricks on top of them, and everyone would have a very poor chance of getting back against the wind, and against such odds. The leader did the only thing; he stuck his nose down hard North-East, followed hard by the rest of the patrol. The Huns behind rushed along to overtake the patrol, and got in a position due south of the Camels, but by the time this had happened the patrol "was about seventeen miles over Hunland. The leader then changed course to North-West.- The Huns, not realising what the leader was up to, hesitated for a second, in which time the Camels had got about a mile and a half away. The leader held on his course, taking no notice of two formations more of Huns below him, going home to roost, which in the ordinary course of events would have been rudely interrupted from their peaceful " end of a perfect day " joy-ride. He held on his course, but when about five miles from the lines, two Huns came down to the Camels, and sat about three hundred yards behind the back man, sniping hard' at him. The leader took in the situation, and came to the conclusion it was no time for," comic heroics." If he turned his formation back to help the back man, he would give the pursuing Huns, who had now reached to the number of twenty, the chance they wanted, and would probably sacrifice his whole patrol for the sake of one man, another large aerodrome near where the patrol had recrossed, the machine had crashed, caught fire, H— was badly burnt, and not expected to live. I went to the telephone, rang tip and asked what had happened. An orderly answered jne, and told me that H— had landed crashed, not caught fire, but had been rushed off to hospital badly wounded. I had hardly put down the receiver before the bell rang again and a voice said " H— speaking, can you send over a tender for me, please ? " It thought it must be his ghost speaking, and could not believe it was really him till I had heard his story. To begin with H— had never seen the two Huns from start to finish. He has been intent on keeping up with the patrol, and had never thought of any Huns coming down behind him, till he heard two bangs, and his engine stopped. He dived down at once (which was when we had seen him go below us). He pumped hard to get up pressure, but nothing happened, so he turned on to his gravity tank, whereupon his engine started up again. By this time he felt a burning stinging feeling in a certain part of the anatomy which is used to sit on and was in so much pain that he was sure he must have bee nwounded. He made his way to aerodrome, landed down wind, and turned " base over apex " in a ditch at the end of the aerodrome. Mechanics had rushed up to see if he was hurt, and by this time he was in such pain that he shouted out, " Take care how you lift me out. I am wounded in my back." One of the men rushed away and got the ambulance tender out to the machine. They lifted out the pilot, put him face down on a stretcher and took him " all out " to the Casualty Clearing Station about a mile away. H— heaved himself out of the tender, walked with difficulty into the receiving ward, when a doctor whipped off his pants and found—nothing ! ! except a large red patch on H—\s skin. H— said he had never felt such a fool in his life, until the doctor told him that he must have been in more pain than he would have been if he had been hit. All the back of his flying kit and clothes had been saturated with petrol, which had burnt his skin for the preceding half-hour, causing him excruciating agony. Ten minutes later, H—, having had some ointment put on his burn, went back to the machine, and on examination found that his main petrol tank behind his seat had two large bullet holes through it, and that the whole machine was soaked in petrol. An hour later H—was back at the squadron none the worse except that he showed a marked reluctance to sit down on any proffered seat. I repeat again, " all's well that ends well."- .. . . ,.. -. H.B. Raid on Paris. THE following official communique was issued in Paris on August 16th:— " The noise of engines having been reported by our look- out posts in the northern district of Paris, the alarm was given at 10.52 p.m. The enemy machines encountered a violent fire from our anti-aircraft batteries. Several bombs were dropped in the Paris district., There were some casualties, and some material damage was done. The ' All Clear ' was sounded at 12.36 a.m." A Raid on Dunkirk. AN aerial attack was made on Dunkirk on t^he night of August I2t.h The raid lasted two hours, and half a dozen large bombs were dropped. One fell on a large building used by the Allies for ambulance purposes. Two members of tin staff were killed and six injured. A Survivor of the Destroyed Zepp. . THE Tyd on August 14th reported that one survivor ot the crew of the Zeppelin which was shot down by the British off Ameland on August nth had been picked up by a trawler and landed at Ymuiden. Bombing in Mid-Air. AMONG the many extraordinary incidents of the recent fighting was the feat of one of our pilots who wrecked an enem y machine below him by dropping a bomb on it. The bomb ^ said to have hit the enemy fairly, and there was nothing left of it in the air. 938
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