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Aviation History
1918
1918 - 1227.PDF
To the man-in-the-street in France the " ace " of the moment is a vivid and well-known personality, and the omnivorous newspaper reader is regaled daily with accounts of what his hero eats, drinks or smokes, and how he spends his time when not effecting "victories glorious." But this hero-worship has surely never been carried farther than in the case of a French colonial soldier, who had a practically life-size head of the great pilot, Guynemer, tattooed on his back, which was already by way of being an academy. THERE have been aviator-poets before, but most of them have been mere " versifiers," and whatever their •prowess in the air, their prosody has been a thing over which to weep. Lieut.-Col. P. Leclerc, who is in com- mand of an aviation camp near Paris, has stronger wings than most of his compeers, as this verse, for the use of which we are indebted to L'Auto, bears witness :— Drape sinople,. argent, comme un beau palefroi, . A ses fiancs la cigogne, embleme d'escadrille, L'avion de combat dans l'air floconneux sille, «* Chez l'aigle aux croix de fer portant le desarroi. Des hauteurs de l'azur dont il semble le loi, Et pareil au gerfaut, tiercelet de Castille, II attaque avec rage, il frappe, feinte, vrille, Fonce, semant soudain la terreut et l'effroi. - L'ennemi fuit devant la fureur qui Pemporte, Et d i ib ht em des oiseaux presses en vibrante cohorte ,.,:;.-''"- Plus d'un tombe meurtri sous 1'acier crepitant. -^ , Lamqrt qui l'accompagne est passee en rafales^ , .Et portant trois couleurs,—dans le ciel eclatant Glissent avec fierte les ailes triomphales. . HOWEVER strange it may appear, there are still firm believers in the story that Lord Kitchener, one of the early advocates of aircraft in war,is even now amongst the living. A very horrible side-light has this week beep thrown upon what led up to the calamity, through a statement attributed to Mr. Henry Mapp, head of the Salvation Army in Russia. Mr. Mapp, who has just returned to New York, declares that the Tsaritsa maintained a private wire connected with Pots- dam, and by this means divulged all the Allied secrets to Germany. A special message, Mr. Mapp states, was sent to the Kaiser in regard to the sailing of the warship on which Lord Kitchener made his last voyage. THERE is sound common-sense in the resolutions just passe'd by the Conference of the Inter-Allied Parliamentary Committee, urging the necessity of constituting an Inter- Allied Independent Air Force to overcome, if need be, the last resistance of the enemy by a campaign of raids over his H.R.H. Capt. Prince Albert crosses to France in an " H.P." with Major Greig as pilot. Prince Albert and Major Greig are seen in flying kit, and, in the 'plane (at the rear), ready to start. 1228 .
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