THE BALLOON AND THE BIRDMAN.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 5 June 1917, Page 3

THE BALLOON AND THE BIRDMAN.

A DRAMATIC SCENE AT THE FRONT (From Malcolm Ross, Official War Correspondent with N.Z. Forces at the Front.) . u Northern France, Oth April We were just sitting down to lunch when we heard the firing of a machinegun. The noise came from the sky, not from the earth. It sounded something like a motor-cycle travelling in the air. Used as we are to strange sounds, there is still something uncanny in hearing the crackle of a machine gun coming from the sky. Generally it means a fight between two ’planes. And there is nothing that is more enthralling than a fight in the air with all its attendant possibilities. Everyone who hears the gun looks up to sec what is happening. A thousand pairs of eyes along, that particular bit of front will be straining skyward. So now we all crowded to the mess-room door, leaving the food untouched on the table. Not far off, swaying ever so slightly against the blue or the brightness of a slowly-passing cloud, ugly, dark, and sinister, was one of our big “sausage” balloons. They look like nothing on earth, those balloons, except when they arc end on, and then they look sometimes like a pig and sometimes like an elephant. As we watched, the rattled of the machine-gun continued to come in short bursts, and, following the di, rection of the sound with our eyes, wc soon saw, not very high above the balloon, a plane—a Boche plane.

A week before we had seen the birdman attack this same balloon. He had dived at it out of a cloud, and had set his machine-gun going, but all to no purpose. The two men in the swaying baskets., had got out their parachutes. They had,flung themselves into space. That sort of thing must give one a strange sensation the first time one attempts. it, even when there is no machincjguu maliciously potting at you from,the sky. One’s first thought must surely be whether the flimsy silk is going to open out or not, and, if it docs,, whether it will drift into your own or the enemy’s lines. Once at Armentieres we watched a balloonist who had to trust Ms life to his parachute coming down through foun or five hundred feet of space with never a sign of its opening. One can imagine his feelings during the first awful moments. Something of the sensation, no doubt, comes to one in dreams when one is falling down, down, down from the top of some high precipice, and wakes with a start, still imagining the dream a reality.

On tliis occasion ave watched the tAvo. bags of Avhitish grey silk bulge quickly, and. iii' company, drift aivay in the light south-Avest Avind, falling sloAvly as they drifted to Mother Earth. Meantime the men at the Avineh avci'o busy hauling doAvn the big balloon. It also got safely to earth. The German haAvk was despoiled of his English prey. But this day, looking from our messroom door, Avhcn the Bochc Bird Man came again, A\ T e suav that he Avas a brave fellow. With grim determination he had come swooping doAvn from t,he height at Avhich he had crossed our lines, and, flying loav above the level lands of Flanders, he made direct for the balloon —a couple of hundred feet or so above it. Tat at tat Avent the ma-chine-gun as he llgaa 7 over, and then, Avith a graceful bank and Curve that shOAved a side gleaming in the sunlight, he attacked again. Meantime our antiair guns Avero banging and peppering the sky Avith fleecy shrapnel puffs, and the tAvo men in the cage had grabbed their parachutes and taken the bold leap into space that meant for them life or death. They had taken it none too soon. Once more avc saAv the silk distend into Iaa t o little oblong clouds that fell as slowly and as silently as flakes fall on a still day. The Bochc, bravely daring, made after them with his machine* gunt tat, tat tatting more earnestly than before. But, again, the hawk had missed his prey. The two balloonists came safely doAvn.

Greatly daring, still, the airmail climb-' eel amid ib e shrapnel, circled round again, and as be ’passed over the now tenant less balloon renewed bis fire with incendiary bullets. The wind) was now going, and the balloon began to come down The bird man bad bidden for a few moments in a cloud, and out of this ho came second and third time. Ins gun spitefully spitting. On the third swoop we saw a few fingers of rod flame shoot forth from the top ol the envelope, These gradually grew and crept lower, till, in less time than it takes to type it, the gas was alight, and the whole thing was a great mass of talbng flame. It fell quickly now, leaving a long pillar of black smoke in the air

as it descended. Very slowly this drifted away and vanished in the other. Then the enemy, noting, the result of his handiwork, circled round and made for home. He bad learrr iother lam. it is true, the trim? we bad taught Idm, at the begin-’:ng *h., creac Son me offensive. Aa lie made off, priced by

three or four of our own planes that had come up, and with our guns still sprinkling the sky with shrapnel, we went back to lunch. “Thes bon, ” said one of the clerks who had come out to witness the encounter and now nonchalantly turned and went back to their work. For a minute we watched the smoke disappearing in the void, and returned to. uur meal. Now that our men were safe we did not grudge the Bochc his prize so bravely won. Later In the day we learnt that the German had been hit, and had crashed to earth behind his own lines. One of our field guns completed the destrnc tion of his machine, which burst into flames. Ho, after all, we had scored the winning trick. Wc were minus one balloon, but we were one airman ami one plane to the good