FORMER ENEMIES

Hokitika Guardian, 1 August 1932, Page 2

FORMER ENEMIES

-MEET AS FRIENDS IN ENGLAND

WAR ACES MEET ONCE MORE

LONDON, July 27

All the strange chivalry with which men fought the grimmest struggle thr world has known—the war in the aii oil the Wetarn Front—was resurrected wlien famous German air “aces' shook hands with pilots whom the.' once met,/ as foes 5 in desperate aerhu duels.

lor Germany’s “Rlaek Knight,’ Major the Baron voil Scheich, the most decorated soldier in the wa , and former leader of the terrible “.Scheich Circus,” is on a visit to England to' see the Royal Air Force pageant at Hendon. With him has come Baron Gnether von Richthofen, cousin of the famous “Red Knight ' Richthofen who was shot Mown in the last year of the war, after accounting for over eighty Allied aeroplanes.

Both the German air aces were fated at the Royal Aeionautical Society’s garden party at Hanworth.

Laron von Scheich was strolling among the crowd at the’ garden party, when suddenly he shouted “Reece,’ left the people to whom he was chatting} ran to a man, threw his arm round his shoulder, and shook him by the hand;

He Had seen Captain S. R .Reece, who is now in business in Liverpool,' but whom lie /had onca shot down over the German lines. Neither of these former enemies could speak the other’s language, but, with an interpreter's help, they managed to have a cheery talk over their battles.

Captain Reece thanked the Baron for the kindness and chivalry after lie uas taken prisoner. The Baron burst into laughter, “Yes,” he said, “but then you were in white flannel - tiousers!”

Strange though it sounds, this was so, Captain Reece explained that “the Baron shot me down when I had gone up at the last moment with the 64th Squadron from Arras. One of our fellows was sick, and I had been playing tennis } and they came to me to go up.

“But perhaps there was no oecason for dejection when you are shot down from 17,000 feet, get away without' injury, and discover, you are the first man that the Black Knight has not shot down in flames.” Finally these war-time foes adjourned to the bar, where each displayed his total knqwledge of his companion’s tongue, for as they raised their glasses of whisky and soda, the German exclaimed “Cheerio” and the Englishman “Frositl”

SPARING AN UNARMED FOE; Major C. Draper, nicknamed the “Mad Major” because of . his reckless daring, was also introduced to tha Germans. During tlu> war, Major Draper brought down thirty-seven German machines—-twelve of them belonging to the “Scheich Circus.” In his hand Major Draper held a piece of the fabric taken from the aeroplane of the dead German “Ace” von Richthofen, artel* he had been shot down. The Major presented this to the Red Knight’s cousin—a relic of fallen fighters on both sides, for it bore the signatures of British flying men who saw von Richthofen’s end, some of them the names of pilots who were themselves to die in the closing stages of thg struggle. Another pilot introduced to the German was Captain Lockev, who, as he shook hands with Baron von Scheich-, said: “You got me in the tank with an explosive bullet.” The Baron bowed as he replied. “1 am glad a bravo man was spared.’ One of Baron von Scheich’s first actions on arriving in England was to inquire about the identity of. a British pilot he had fought over Bnpaume on September 2, 1918. “1 was attacked by an English airman flying a Sopwith-Dolphin,” the Baron explained, “On Ids machine was the distinguishing mark of a bird which looked very much like a stork. We fought for some time, and then my ammunition gave out. Immediately my opponent saw what had happened, he flew quite close to me and waved is a signal that I could go. He would not fight an unarmed enemy. “That was a most sporting action which I shall never forget. “I am most anxious to meet this British sportmnn shake him by the hand and give him my thanks.”