THE AIRMAN'S PART

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 84, 3 January 1919, Page 6

THE AIRMAN'S PART

■——» ■' MOST WONDERFUL CREATION OF THE WAR. • (By Capt. Paul Bewsher, D.S.C!, R.A.F.. - in tho "Daily Mail.") The growth and successes'of tho British armies during the war have been amazing ..enough, but the history of tho lloyal Air Force touches tho miraculous. Though the present Army is nearly twenty times larger than the original British Army, and now contains but few officers and men who had military training before the, war, yet it has tradition and precedent. But the Air Force had nothing behind it—no tradition, no experience, no knowledge. " . Everything had to bo learnt by "finding out." From fighting with pistols the airmen progressed to fighting with ma-chine-guns. From solitary combats betwo machines, whose'riders fought as knights of old; alone in the watching skies, the airmen learnt to fight in companies of live or six, working ,'together, and fighting'not only for self but also for tho oommor. weal. Then squadrons of machines fought together, and at times fifty or 6isty aeroplanes would fill the skies with the clamour of their engines and the mad chorus of their ma-chine-guns. At the outset 'it had to face an overwhelming number of German machines. For a time our masteiy was disputed, nnd then.we gained definitely the domination of the air, and have held it unwaveringly ever sine?.. . We wrested it from the enemy against his will, and we have resisted every effort of his to hold it onco again. It is the British spirit of sportsmanship—the hunting spirit, tho boxing xiirit, the spirit of games for games snkp—which hn<; made the golden youHi of England rido so triumphantly in the skies as they (lash over the land of the enemy, their dazzling pinions emblazoned with the-colours of their race. It is the British spirit of dogged <le'termination which has inspired rfur lonely, airmen on their long reconnaissance (lights far, far behind the frontiers of their foes, which has led them on. through danger and difficulties and has brought them back; which has inspired our giant, bombers on their night-long (light amid the stars over the gleaming rivers and 'the dim moonlit world full of a hostile pomilation. By almost 'superhuman efforts, by the patient, untiring industry of thousands of air mechanics in hangir and workshop, by the toiling of countless aircraft workers, b.v the ceaseless work of the instructors in schools and the careful direction of the authorities, a vast air fleet , manned by thousands of keen and capable boys has been created out of nothing, savo the desire for victory, in four years. "Per nnlua ad ast.ra" ("Through hardshins to Hie stars") reads tho airman's motto. Tho hardships have been surnounted, the stars liavo been achieved.

For Children's Hacking Cough, Woods' Great Peppermint Cure*