Help From the Clouds.

Huntly Press and District Gazette, Volume 4, 18 June 1915, Page 3

Help From the Clouds.

THE FIRST PRISONER CARRIED CAPTIVE IN THE AIR.

There is no end to the surprises the airmen seem able to spring upon us in the war. Two dramatic additions have to ba added to the list One day the engine of a Russian aeroplane went wrong, and the pilot and observer had to descend in hostile country. While the mechanic was putting the engine right, the observer, keeping a keen watch, saw six Austrian soldiers approaching. A shell was fired from the aeroplane gun and five of the men dropped. The sixth held up his hands in token of surrender. As it was important that the man should not be al lowed to escape, the aviators threw—-awa'y ' their bombs to lighten the machine, tied the prisoner to the tail of the aeroplane, and, through a storm of bullets from the enemy's outposts, whisked him in triumph to the Russian lines —the first prisoner ever carried through the air. But a more remarkable thing happened during the Russian retreat from Bulkdkoff. Surrouuded by Germans, the Russian troops ran short of ammunition, and seemed in danger of extermination or capture, when, LoJ_.ir.om. the air came new stores of material. Russian aeroplanes came flying from a base in rear of the German lines, bearing boxes of bullets. Load after load arrived, g-and with their store of fighting material thus replenished the hard-pressed troops battled on and saved the situation.