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Aviation History
1918
1918 - 1228.PDF
OCTOBER 31, 1918 territory, and suggests for this purpose common industrialcontrol of the production of aeronautical material. The committee also requests the associated Governments to setup a Commission to make proposals for international legisla- tion with the object of organising definite air routes. Allof which good objects have been strongly advocated in the past in " FLIGHT." ., EGYPT is to help lead the world in progress aviatic. Aproposal before the Egyptian authorities is being considered for the inauguration of an aerial post between Alexandria,Port Said, Cairo and Khartoum. Shades of General Gordon ! IT would be a work of a supererogation to descant on theskill and courage of our air fighters at the front, but the frequency with which their flying exploits are recorded in oneform or another has outshone their merits in another respect. In a word, they are good soldiers as well as good pilots, witha respect for discipline in no way impaired by the fact that, to a greater degree than any other branch of the forces, theyare called upon to display individual enterprise, adroitness and bravery to a superlative degree. When discipline makesits call, however, they are in no way found wanting, and there can be no har in calling attention now to an incident of theGerman retreat over the Vesle which provided one of the most thrilling episodes of the war. THE order went forth that the bridge by which the Hunswere crossing must be destroyed " at all costs." Up went a British pilot, but when he got into bombing position he wasshot down. Another followed, only to share the fate of the first. Machine after machine went up, but one after anothercame crashing to the ground. The Huns had posted two 12-inch howitzers, the shells from which converged to a pointimmediately above the bridge, and no pilot flying low enough to make sure of his mark could escape the area of tremendousconcussion caused by the explosions. Still, the attack on the bridge was maintained without a falter, a pile of crashedmachines meanwhile accumulating on the river banks, until at length the bombs found their mark and the deed wasdone. BUT at what a cost ! Incredible though it may appear,more than 30 machines had been brought down by the howitzers before the bridge was destroyed. Up to the timeof this incident it had been supposed that a performance of the Royal Engineers, early in the war, was the outstandingachievement in the way of pure heroism. A bridge which we had crossed during a retirement had to be blown up, and 11men in turn were killed in attempting to fire the charge ; the twelfth reached the bridge unscathed and effected hisdesperate purpose. But for over 30 pilots in succession to attempt the all but impossible at a given spot, in the executionof a specific order, is surely the last word in spledid devotion to duty. OF a different order, but equally illustrating the spiritby which our pilots are animated, was the case of a man who went back to work after a truly horrific experience. Hismachine caught fire in the air, and with flames gradually enveloping him he decided that sudden death was preferableto being roasted alive. He took out his revolver and pointed it at his own head, but his right hand by this time was sobadly burned that he could not pull the trigger. Meanwhile the machine came to earth, and, as it happened, he wasneither^killed by the crash nor did he die from his burns. His spirit was unquenched, and the moment he recoverd from hisinjuries he started flying again over the German lines. Two days' journey in two hours. Comment is hardlynecessary for pointing the moral of the following " short story " from Mr. G. Ward Price, writing last week from theMacedonia British Headquarters :— " I came back yesterday afternoon from Sofia to Salonicain an aeroplane. The journey by air is of two hours only. " Before the war when I travelled from Sofia to Salonicaby train it took two days. The Staff officers of the British Army in the Balkans make more personal use of aeroplanesthan probably the officers of any other army in the war. A personal conference may be needed, for instance, with theCommander of one of our Army Corps, whose headquarters are 80 miles away. To get there and back by motor car,-mostly over the rough Macedonian roads, would take the whole day from dawn to dusk. Instead, the Commander-in-Chief,or his Chief of Staff, will start midway through the morning by aeroplane, arrive in one hour, have an hour's conference, andbe back at General Headquarters by 1 o'clock." WONDER where " Dora " comes in over the communications to the Press of the Committee on War Damage, through its chairman, Mr. Mark H. Judge, in regard to the returns of casual- ties which have resulted from enemy air raids and bombard-ment, about to be presented to the Government. Or is the scheme official ? It is, anyway, an excellent bit of workwhich the Committee seem to have in hand. The returns are from areas having a population of more than 1,250,000.The idea is that town clerks and clerks of urban and rural areas which have been attacked and from which returns havenot been made should at once send in to the honorary secretary, Mr. W. H. Southon, 40, Chancery Lane, London, W.C.2.The particulars to be included in the returns are :—(1) Date of each attack ; (2) number killed ; (3) number wounded ;(4) estimated cost of making good damage to property. Information is also desired of cases where there were attacksand no material damage done. We fancy somehow " Dora " forbids the collection of thesesort of facts, whether for publication or the reverse. " DAGONET," in last Sunday's Referee, has an interesting" recollection " of Frederick Marriott, a well-known journalist in the early Victorian days, and his association with the earlyhistory of ciir navigation. Marriott, after many vicissitudes of a journalistic character and otherwise, made his way toCalifornia, writes " Dagonet," and there eventually started the San Francisco News Letter, by which he made a fortune. " But I am thinking," " Dagonet " continues, " of Marriottnow on quite a different plane of existence—namely the aeroplane. Somewhere in the early 'forties Marriott hadbecome interested in a scheme called the Henson Aerial Steam Navigation Carriage, which was to be steered throughspace. Everybody laughed at the idea of aerial navigation, and Marriott lost all the money he put into it, but to the dayof his death, which occurred in the late 'eighties, he believed in it. I remember that my old friend Henry Vizetelly, writingin 1893 °f the San Francisco News Letter and Marriott, said, ' To the last he clung to his aerial navigation fad, to advancewhich he had floated a company in the Far West, but with his death, Aero-Plane scrip, of not much account before, passedbeyond the realms of Stock Exchange quotation.' Poor old Marriott ! He put money into aeroplanes in the early'forties. He floated an aeroplane company in the late 'eighties. Nobody believed in navigable flying machines buthimself and a few friends who were looked upon as crack- brains. And to-day we are told that after the war we shallbe able to travel to Australia by air." FROM Hobart, Tasmania, a quaint enquiry is to band.After reading the communication through a second time, we are still in doubtful mind whether our correspondent ispulling our leg or whether it is a wheeze for getting editorial mention of an article of commerce. Anyway, here's ourreader's letter, and if anyone feels competent to advise upon the subject, why send along to the editor and he'll do therest:— " Having lost some racing pigeons through the striking ofhawks, I was thinking of camouflaging the top surface o f my birds. Would this have any effect on the judgment ofthe hawk in finding the pigeon's speed ? The red chequer is not so easily struck as are birds of blue and black colours.The majority of birds that are hawk-struck over in Hobart are blue chequers. " Could you advise me as to what colours I should use,and the best way to camouflage ? " Thanking you in anticipation," Believe me to be yours sincerely, " P.S.—Would diamond dyes do ? " " A BUSINESS suggestion the other day by a sound businessman is illustrative of the trend of aviation to enter into the ordinary routine of the world's doings in the future. Mr.John Robertson, joint general manager of the Northern Assu r- ance Company, at a meeting of the London Insurance In-stitute on Monday evening, gave voice to the hope that " insurance companies will soon include in their pros-pectuses insurance against risks to machine and to life and limb in travelling in the air, which, after the war, will beone of the commonplaces of everyday existence." TEN'YEARS AGO Excerpts from " FLIGHT " of October 2<fth, 1908. COLLAPSE OF BRITISH ARMY AEROPLANE. Early on Friday morning, October 16th, Mr. Cody tookthe machine out with the intention of making an actual flight, and, starting against a ten-mile breeze, the elevatingplane was lifted when a speed of about thirty miles an hour had been attained. Immediately the aeroplane rose fromthe ground, and flew steadily onwards through the air, but when an attempt to turn was made in order to avoid sometrees in the line of flight, the machine lost its equilibrium, and crashed heavily to the ground upon its left wing. ( 1229
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