A WAR STORY

Hokitika Guardian, 12 February 1929, Page 7

A WAR STORY

AIRMAN’S ERIC FLIGHT. While an 18-ycnrs-old Canadian pilot, Second-Licut. Alan Arnett McLeod of the Royal Air Force, was (lying with an observer over the German lines on the Western front in the spring cl 1918 he was suddenly attacked by eight enemy triplanes.

They dived at him from all directions, firing at him with their front machine guns as he flew at a height of 5,00') feet above the ground. The odds against him were terrible but he turned against his swarm of assailants with the greatest of bravery Manoeuvring his machine with much skill, he enabled his observer, Lieut A. W. Hammond, M.G., to bring his machine gun to hear on each enemy aeroplane in turn. So accurate was his file in these wild bewildering moments that no fewer than three of the triplanes fell spinning to the ground out of control one after the other. Young McLeod had now received five wounds from the torrent of Jlatning bullets directed at him from the spitting machine-guns in the front A the enemy machines. Suddenly a flame hurst out of his petrol tank and in a few moments it was blazing furiously—set on fire by one of tile tracer bullets of the opposing craft. The fierce flames swept, through the cockpit of the pilot. At once he climbed out of the machine and stood on the lert bottom plane. From this insecure post, exposed to the full force of the wind, he managed to control the machine, and he caused it to side slip steeply, so that the flames were blown to one jSide. This enabled the observer to continue to fire as the burning machine slip rapidly to the ground leaving a tail of smoke behind it. When the machine finally crashed in “No Man’s Land’’ Lieutenant Hammond had been wounded six times. Despite bis own ‘Wounds. Second Lieutenant McLeod dragged bis observer away from the blazing machine under heavy machine-gun lire from the German linos. ■While ho was doing so he was again wounded by a bomb, but be managed to drag bis comrade to a place of comparative safety before lie full exlmustFor bis bravery which was hardly excelled by any other airman in the war, he was awarded the Victoria Cross.