VIVID STORY FROM THE CLOUDS

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2705, 26 February 1916, Page 3

VIVID STORY FROM THE CLOUDS

WITH A BRITISH RAIDER THRILLING DASH ON TROOP TRAINS (From the "Motor of Australia.") [Says. the official report of a certain air raid: "Our airmen, near Ghent, on _ , bombed three enemy troop trains successfully. All machines returned safely." What a heartstirring narrative 1 Here is tlio personal story of one of the participants in that raid —a vivid picture of the British airman in his war element, penned by the son of a Sydney journalist, at present serving with the lloyal Flying Corps in France J , "Make no mistake about it," he says, by -way of preliminary, "this war is going to end with a sudden crash, the beginning of which will be the destruction of Essen by Anglo-French aeroplanes about January or, at latest, February next year. These new aeroplanes are superb, exquisite, real bobbydazzlers and blanky limits. I have just 'got back from a. strenuous week in one. 1 can't tell you much about it, but tho Sikorsky giants are mere babies compared to the glorious machine in which I am now writing this. 1 love the thing, so I spend ;every moment 1 can in it. It is gigantic, ana we have stayed up threo days and nights in it. It carries two 3-inch guns, four ma-chine-guns, and has a ainke.v arrangement for dropping large-calibre highexplosive shells. We sail and fight behind armour plate, which can resist either rifle fire or machine-gun bullets,, and even the shells fired,' by smaller quick-firers. There is no fabric on our planes—they are made of sheeti metal. And speed! Sly creator, it makes.you dizzy to think of it. By using gravitation to accelerate the force of the tractors we have registered over 138 miles per hour. Think of it! . . . It is an English invention, the work of an obscure Northumberland mining engineer. An old inan, shy, and utterly devoid of business acumen. He presented the idea to the War, Office, and now they are being manufactured all over, Britain, France, and also ill America. lam under orders to lea,ve here shortly to go to'the States to bring one of thqjm over. The Herring-Pond In 28 Hours. "We are to fly . from America to Europe on our own power. How I would love to have, you on that trip. _ Wo simply- cannot go wrong. Even if we have to descend we will still iioat, and as we have wireless we can call assistance from fast torpedo destroyers which will be waiting at various places to tender aid if any of us should come lown. Hitherto the great trouble in lerial service has been the cold. In spite of fur gloves with rubber fingertip fronts, our hands have besome so numbed that, sometimes it was almost impossible to handle the • wheel and levers. And the cold used to strike right through the body, destroying our vigour and resource. All that is done away with. The largest of these machines has eight engines, of which two are, always kept

in reserve, and the "gun room"—you can't call it a cockpit, is kept warm by electric lieaters, which make it as snug as the cabin of a Cunard liner. It is reckoned that tho flight across the 'Atlantic' will occupy from: 22 to 26 Jours.. This means that under 'the most favourable circumstances we: will make about 132 miles per hour. In'the most adverse we will make not fewer than I 0 so in any case we will be v ell within the capacity of our fuel. "Another thing, thanks to old Vandervell, wo have electric starters now, and -it moans so much to us. lln tho old days, when the engine stopped wo, had to descend. Now, -with this huge machine I shut off the other day, dropped noarly 2000 ft., and then started off again.. As the result of these new machines you will shortly see cable news from all fronts of the Bosches being short of ammunition. We have been smelling out quite a lot of powder, factories of late, and we have spent several nights in German territory, resting m hiding, and resuming our raid in the morning. We carry enough fuel to keep us going at 90, miles per hour for 76 hours. -,So if we'descend in • German territory at night we can'put in at least 36 hours raiding their factories by daylight. •: