Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 171, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 July 1918 — Bagging Their First Hun Planes [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Bagging Their First Hun Planes

Home-Trained American Boys Tell How They Shot Down Enemy Fliers From the Sky 7 tbpT HAPPENED while we were ■ bowling along a smooth I French road that split innu- ■ merable red-tiled villages in lia lves on its way to the American front, writes Her- ' man Whitaker in the Detroit News. A week before I had jour- MM IT neyed around our flying instruction stations in south France, where our lads were to be seen in training from their first ridiculous “hops” witli wing-clipped “pengulns” to the daredevil stunts on the » acrobatic field. There I had watched

perform a n c e s that would have raised the hair of Lincoln Beachey or any other of the stunt flyers of five years ago. For in the ordinary course of their flying our lads are taught the “vreille,” or tail spin; the “r e versement,” a half loop and fait jsldeways; to “camel, turning over and over sideways like a rolling cask; the “vertical cirage,” a 90-degree bank, said to be a most disagreeable first experience ; to bank and side slip the distance required to elude a pursuer; a difficult operation which the beginner usually ends in a

“barrel.” While dropping from a boy pull valmost the whole bag of tricks. In fact he put'his plane through every possible twist and gyration — and many impossible—in an actual fall. Visits U. S. Squadron. With this knowledge stored away I was now on my way to visit an American squadrilla in actual service at the front. As we approached the last town between us and the trenches I finished telling the, lieutenant from general headquarters about a submarine I had seen captured while enilsing with our destroyer flotilla in English waters. He agreed that it was as fine a bit of luck as ever fell to a correspondent. “But lightning never strikes twice in the same place,” he added. “You used up all the luck that is coming to you in this war. You won’t get in on anything like that again.” He was, however, mistaken. Nature’s laws are said to be without exceptions, but he had no more than said it before the lightning violated all precedents and struck again—through the raised hand and arm of an American military policeman on the edge of the town. “Pinched!” our sergeant chauffeur exclaimed when the hand went up. He was not altogether jpking. Military law is not unlike that of the Medes And Persians which altereth not. Because of some mixup in their passes three correspondents had -been “pinched” by the military police and brought back to M. G. H. Q. the week before in a state of uncertainty as to whether or no they would be shot at sunrise. The sergeant added as the car rolled on to a slow stop: “You can get by the French military police with any old thing—beer check, laundry bill, chewing gum coupon, anything that’s written in English and looks official, but when them'lron-jaws of mirs hold up a hand it means you.” Je See Boche The “iron jaw,” however, was relaxed in a pleasant smile. Saluting, its owner informed us: “If you drive round by the public square you will see two Boche planes our boys have just shot down. It’s worth yoUr while, for these are the first planes brought down by home-trained American aviators flying our own flag.” “First Submarine —first plane!” the lieutenant commented as we drove on. “You must be the luckiest man in the whole world!” It happened to be Sunday, and in the square we found dozens of women,

children and pretty French girls, all in their 2p-to-meetlng best, elbowing through a mixed crowd of Pollus, Tommies and Sammies to get a good view of the wrecks. Of the two Albatrosses one had burned in mid-air and lay a charred wreck on the ground. The other could easily be fitted for flying again. Both their pilots had survived, though one was badly burned. Their conquerors, we were told, could be found at the flying field outside the town, and a very few minutes thereafter it opened before our speeding car; a dead flat plain bounded on one side by long low barracks; on the other by camouflaged hangars. In front of one, surrounded by a mixed mob of mechanics and flyers, stood the victorious planes. In the crowd we found two of our crack fliers who had recently been transferred to us from the Lafayettes. One had just received the newly created American ord?r for distinguished conduct. The other has no less than 16 official “crashes” to his credit and twice as many that are unrecorded. All Like “Maiden Aunts.” Usually the presence of this one man would be sufficient to set any hangar abuzz with excitement. But today he and his fellow stars were “suping” in a scene which in its general features strongly resembled that created in an average American household by the first visit of the stork. The same atmosphere of quiet joy. suppressed excitement, prevailed. In their pleased interest, indeed, the two stars might have acceptably filled the role of maiden aunts at a christening. They were bashful about their age as girls—for the opposite reason. They would fain have been older. When pressed for the truth Douglas Campbell, a young Californian, admitted one and twenty. Alan Winslow, who hails from Chicago, went him one better. Babies! Just out of their Infancy! Think of it! But then —this aerial war has been conducted from the first by babes. Of course you want to know more about them. Alan Winslow, then, trained with the French; therefore must yield to young Campbell, who was born and raised at the Lick observatory on the top of Mount Hamilton in central California —with its wooded gorges, deep ravines, cosmic outlook over foothills and plains, surely an ideal eyrie for a young eagle. He had taken his ground training at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and was completely American trained.

Your fighter is never a talker, and of all fighte s the air men go the limit in slowness of speech. Even alter Winslow, the hoary elder of two and twenty, was finally prodded to talk, he left so much to the Imagination that It Is necessary to fill In between his wide lines. Hear Planes Coming. He and Campbell had got out early for the first official flight and were playing cards in a tent near their hangar while the mechanics tuned up their machines. The morning was clear, sunlight streaming between soft clouds high over the flying field. From the sand bag targets, where a machine gun was being lined up and synchronized with the motor, came staccato bursts of firing. Everything was going on as usual, when in response to a telephone call from some far observation post, a bugle shrilled out the “Alerte!” “I was already :p. my flying togs" Winslow’ explained, ao got ,nto the air at once. Campbell followed about a minute later. The Boche planes had just come into view, flying quite low, not higher than 1,000 feet. Their pilots said afterward that they were lost and mistook our station for their own, otherwise they would never have ventured intp such a hornets nest. “To me it seemed impossible. I felt sure it must be some of our fellows coming in from another station. But the ‘Alerte!’ kept me ready. They were flying higher than we and the Instant I sighted the German cross I let fly a burst from my gun. Shot in Second Burst “The BoChe answered, but already I had bapkefi steeply on a half loop that carried me above him; then describing a ‘vreille;’ that is, a tail spin. I came squarely behind and shot him down with my second burst. “By that time Campbell was chasing his man like a hawk after a running chicken across the sky, and I lit out after them. How that Boche did go! But he was too slow. Just as I caught up Campbell sent him down in flames.” He summed up this remarkable contest in. the following schedule: “The ‘Alerte!’ sounded at 8:45. Eight-fifty, closed with the Boche. Eight fifty-one, shot down my man. Eight fifty-two, Campbell got his. Eight fifty-three, back on the ground.” Eight minutes by the clock! Good work! We went Into their rooms to view the trophies, guns, cartridge belts, clocks and so forth that were laid out on their cots, and while we were looking them over (Campbell added the last humane touch to the story. In sky warfare alone, It's raid, have the Germans displayed any chivalry, a thing that is quite understandable. The uttermost bravery called for in those desperate duels up there in the wide and lonely vault of heaven is always associated with chlvalric spirit. The knightly tradition still obtains and this lad’s utterance proved that our boys can be depended upon to uphold it. “My fellow was wearing an iron cross. I wanted it badly, but the poor devil was suffering enough from his burns. I hadn’t the heart to take it from him.” Fine feeling! There is. no such thing as defeat for men animated by such spirit backed up by th? thorough, intensive training given at our fields. - By a quick combination of acrobatics he had learned during instruction Winslow had got his man. And as I thought of the quick-witted lads that are now getting the same training not by the tens and twenties but by hundreds and thousands, I mentally echoed a favorite exclamation of the British Tommy: “Poor old Fritz!”

LIEUT. ALAN WINSLOW (LEFT) AND LIEUT. DOUGLAS CAMPBELL, FIRST AMERICAN AVIATORS TO BRING DOWN ENEMY PLANES

GERMAN AIRPLANE BROUGHT DOWN IN FLAMES