IN THE AIR.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 30 June 1917, Page 3

IN THE AIR.

4,000 FEET DIVE. three enemies down in one flight. In illustration of the gallantry and activity of our airmen, well dubbed “the salt of the earth,” Mr. W. Beach Thomas quotes the rough diary of one single flight taken by a pilot of a flighting machine. The story plunges into the middle of things at once, thus: “I attacked enemy plane near Cambrai headon at 8,000 feet. I saw sign of damage to enemy’s engine from my fire as soon as we closed on one another and half-looped to one side of him when he dived, leaving a large trail of blue smoke I dived down to about 4,000 feet after him and fired 50 rounds, when he went down absolutely out of control. I was immediately afterwards attacked by three more Gorman planes, which drove me down to about 200 feet. We were firing at one another whenever possible when at last I got into good position and attacked one from above, and from right. I closed on the latter, turning in behind him, and got so near that I could see shape of pilot’s head against sight of my gun. The first shots were mortal and his machine simply heeled over and spun into ground. Other two machines cleared off. During fight I saw two other enemy’s planes spin down. Then, having lost sight of all other machines and being only 200 feet from ground, I decided to fly home at that height. A company of German cavalry going along small road halted and fired and several machine-guns opened fire, After flying west for about five minutes I was again attacked by another type of enemy’s machine. We manoevred against one another for some while, until within about five minutes of crossing the line, flying against the strong wind. When he was about 150 yards behind me I looped straight over him, and, coming out of loop, dived and fired a good burst, hitting the pilot mortally in the back. He at once dived straight into ground, I then went over German trenches filled with soldiers and was fired at by machine-guns rifles, and small fields guns, in and out of range. There was a lot of small artillery firing and shells bursting in and about German trenches. I landed at first aerodrome I saw, My machine was badly shot about.” Such is the bare tale of one flight out of thousands in the battle of Arras. Our machines were among the enemy all the time, some observing, some fighting both other planes and infantry, some oven wrecking transport, some bombing.