“THE MAD MAJOR.”

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1612, 19 September 1916, Page 4

“THE MAD MAJOR.”

THRILLING AIK DUEL. One can scarcely pick up an English paper without finding in it some reference to the mysterious airman “The Mad Major." Writing to his father from the trenches in Prance, under date June ‘22nd, Private B. F. Kendregan, of Coogee, Sydney, also refers to this intrepid a'irman. In his letter he says: — “We are out of the trenches for a spell, and I can tell you we want it badly. Of course, we relieve at night, and no movement can be carried out in daytime owing to the shells. 1 have had a fair experience now of what the business is like, and, talk about shaves —I think 'I am the ‘Narrow Escape King,' for the only damage I have so far suffered is a ducking in the mud and several frights. Only, last night a. shell fell al the back of me by about two yards. The chap sitting next to me had his nose chopped clean off by a splinter, while a sandbag half-smothered me, but my steed helmet saved me. These steel helmets are splendid, and I have already seen-ten lives saved by them, and, besides their pi’oper function as a headgear, they can be adapted to several other uses not expected by their designers, such as dishes for cooking or washing in, amt-dix-ies for tea-making, but it would be better if they were provided with a handle.

“Even sineo I have boon in the French irenehes I hnve been, anxious 1o witness n fight in the air, and it was only a few days ago that my curiosity was rewarded. About half a mile up and right above us a few of our battle-planes were mixing it with a couple of Eokkers, and I can assure you it was a grand splash. You cannot imagine (be skill and daring of our airmen—both French and British. They climb until they look like birds, and then come down bead first, trying to smash the enemy planes, with their machine-guns going all the lime. ‘ You remember those airmen we saw in Sydney giving exhibitions. Well, they were mere novices at (he game compared with the Allies’ airmen of to-day. It is nothing to see the ‘Mad Major’ dive from about a mile up right down on to the German trenches, and open out on them with a- machine-gun and bombs. Before poor Frit/, has recovered from the surprise, the Major is up in the clouds again. With regard to the fight 1 was telling you about, after diving and circling round each other for a while, with machine-guns going all the time, two Eokkers crumpled up and fell like stones. We were all standing on the fire-step, forgetting that there was a war on, and only anxious to see the fight in the air. The Germans were doing the same, opposite, and if either side had opened on the other with a machine-gun there would have been a line bag. Until the two Fokkefs fell we both forgot all about fighting, and then began to realise it, and simply fell over one another, and off the (ire-step and parapets in a big heap, and got, to the real business in bund again. Our cheers when the men brought flic Eokkers down ought to have been bear’d in Berlin.

' “Talking of ‘the Mad Major,’ a* he is called, some of the artillery toll me that when he is observing for a battery and they do not register a hit after he has given them the range, he eomes down and gives the gunners a real good hooting, but if they find the range he kisses the muzzle of the gun, and talks to it like a baby.”