DARING AIRMEN AT CAMBRAI

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 124, 12 February 1918, Page 7

DARING AIRMEN AT CAMBRAI

1 WONDERFUL EXPLOITS. "The weather from the very beginning of the battle has been consistently what would normally be considered too bad' for useful flying," wrote one of the British war correspondents from the Cambrai battle-front at the time of the creat tank coup. "The enemy flying corps has so regarded it. But this is absolutely true, namely, that we and the Germans have different standards in this matter. Our men are incomparably the more daring, and habitually show boldness and individual originality of which the Germane never dream. On the morning of the attack where I watched it was often difficult to avoid thu impulse to duck one's head to avoid our aeroplanes, which came thrumming acroes tho open, 30 or 50 or 100 feet up, straight to or from tho battle field. There was never an enemy machine in sight. That has continued day after day. Friday was the first fine sunny day we have had, and then for the first time German flying men appeared, and strove to make 6ome show of emulating what our men were doing. But from the beginning of the battle the air has been in our possession, and the share which flying men have homo in our success can hardly be overestimated.

"Perhaps one of tho most striking examples of audacity nnd of the alertness of our men to make themselves of use in actual fighting was in Bourlon Wood, where an airman overhead saw our advancing tanks held tip by a line of guns, and enemy infantry in large numbers. The aeroplane flew down, and from a height of less than 50 feet, taking deliberate ■ aim, dropped bombs on each gun, and then swung round and used its machine-guns on tho infantry, who snattered, and our tanks went on their victorious road-again.

"It is impossible to mention even a tithe of the individual acts of gallantry performed by our airmen, but it must bo understood that throughout the first three days tho air was so thick that, to he of any service, the aeroplanes had to fly at heights of from SO feet to 150 feet up. At that height an aeroplane is a reasonably easy mark for enemy rifles and ma-chine-guns, and I believe I am right in saying that no ono of our machines lias not been riddled with bullets again and again. One young pilot regards it as a huge joke on himself that ho has been shot down three times in two days, but ench time haß been close enough to tho lines to get down on our side and low enough to land without a serious catastrophe. Again and again our men, going out in tho morning, have used up their bombs or machine-gun ammunition, and have come hurrying home to the base and shouting as they landed for more. Not seldom they have been angry as little hornets when told that their machine was so shot to bits that they must not start back again. 'You ought to have heard him curse,'- said ono officer of tho Flving Corps to me, 'when T told him his machine wild not go half a mile.' 'Well, give mo tho —— bombs nnd let mo go the half mile and see,' said the other,"