OUR AIR MASTERY

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2977, 15 January 1917, Page 6

OUR AIR MASTERY

. BAD TIME FOR THE GERMANS. • (From Captain Malcolm Ross, Official i Correspondent with the New Zealand Forces.) France, November 20. ! More wonderful even than all the 1 tremendous, artillery fire was the ac- • tivity in tho air. Coming back from' > tho front one fine afternoon, I count- ■ ed no fewer than thirty-one kite bal- ' loons swaying in a gentle breeze against i tho bluo. I think,they were nearly all ' ours —thetre nnay lhavor been a. 'fenv • French near where the linos joined— ' but never during all our stay, on the , s Somins battlefield did I see more than > eight German balloons up. As for planes, the air seemed alive with them. Singly, and in pairs, and in flights like migrating geeso they came and went . across the German lines. We knew ; them for British by their shape, and the broadl painted circles under their ■ wings. Seldom did the tauben, with • their more sinister black crosses for sign marks, come our way. When they did : thoy were chased back and hunted down by our superb battalions of the > air. They were in such a minority that one felt rather sorry for them, for . the German fliers are, many of them, . brave fellows, and the corps as a whole . is imbued with that sporting spirit that . is so dominant a characteristic of our own people, bub which seems foreign to f the German army as a whole: Our own 1 planes did not, of course, escape scathless. The remains of one lay on the f crest of the ridge just beyond Montau- - ban. Others we had seen coming down - through engine or other trouble in our - own lines. Occasionallyyou watched t a thrilling combat high in air. One - such I saw in thoso last days from - the shellod slopes beyond Delvillo Wood. - Some German planes, flying high, wero ! sent over to see what was doing be- - hind our lines. In an fnstant several > of our own were after them, like fal- ; cons swooping on their prey. Prcsent- ; ly we could hear the stutter >„of the F machine-guns high above us. A Taube ) was hit. Like a'shotbird, it seemed 1 to hesitate in its flight a moment, i swerve slightly, and then como tearing , downwardß through tho air. It crash- ■ ed to earth behind tho tronches, where tho German infantry would nr> doubt soon be extricating a dead pilot and a dead observer from the wreckage of their battered machine'. And next day [• you would read in the cold communique , of the British Armies in tho Field that ' "N.E. of Flors an enomy piano was J brought down." The communique has no space for pcriphrase. As for the bravery of our air men, 3 it is simply magnificent. Early in tho war the work of flying men was regarded as being safer than that of most s , others who were in the real fighting. It r is not so now. When one sees tho sky \ flecked with puffs of smoke from Gorman shells bursting about our aero- - planes ono appreciates tho risks that r these brave young Englishmen take ._ every day of their lives. They take • all the risks uncomplainingly, oven 8 cheerfully. Hovering low over the .- desolate zono of the shell-torn earth, I. they aro a target for the enemy's anti- .- aircraft guns, even for his field howit--0 zers; yet they never waver in their set n nurpose. At times there is a veritable I r barrage in the air, and this they cross 1 and recross as if nothing was happen- ;. ing. The German 77's and 105's burst i. about them as they swerve and rise and 5 fall. A long trail of floating puffs, n gradually thinning as the fleecy balls r are left further behind, marks their 2 course. Yet, undeterred, they go and return with valuable information for e the gunners and the commanders. Somco times they do not come back, and then y- you read another laconic announoe- '- ment that one of ours has been brought e down. But for every ono brought '• .jlown another is ready to take his -nlnco, o and so, God and the Air Board willing, i- it will be to the end. s ,t ' =====