DROPPED OUT OF A CLOUD.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 99, 22 October 1915, Page 4 (Supplement)

DROPPED OUT OF A CLOUD.

A private in the Suffolk Regiment, writing home to Lowestoft, says:— " We were in the trenches, and it was. getting well towards evening, when several German aeroplanes had been been continually flying over our trenches, trying to take observations. One of them was seen to drop several little starlights to signal their artillery that they had seen troops or some • thing on the move. Our fellows seemed very angry, because we could not see any of ours about after them or firing to clear them away. But the ' unexpected was in store. The German that dropped the starlights was carrying out a risky job in planing down very low to make the observations more plain for them, when all of a sudden we saw a little dark speck coming down from a cloud.

"We all wondered what it could be; as it came quicker we saw that it was an aeroplane, and, we believed, one of ours. It came down like a flash of lightning, right on top of the "nemy, giving them a dog's chance, and, 10 our delight, droned a petrol bomV right into it. All of a 6udden it up and iptched down nose tint aloat 400 ft. Then, somei-nw. the (Annans seemed to control it a bit, but gradually it came to earth in a great wood within our lines. One kept wonderins what happened to them. Later we heard from the man at the telephone that one was burnt to death, and the other jiitst managed to get out of the mach'ne badly burnt. This is the third one I have 6een brought down."