Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 241, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 October 1918 — AIRPLANE AFIRE, HE “CARRIES ON” [ARTICLE]

AIRPLANE AFIRE, HE “CARRIES ON”

British Pilot Tells of Thrilling Experience Spotting for Artillery. DESCENDS JUST IN TIME Engine Stops Just as Mission Is Completed—Puts Machine Into SideSlip—Tank Explodes Just as He Reaches Safety. London. —“The fighting pilots don’t get all the fun of the war in the air,” writes a young ‘bird’ who had a thrilling experience recently, returning to his base in a flaming plane. “We were flying over No Man’s Land,” he says, “spotting for the artillery, and by constantly changing direction and height we had pretty well escaped the attention of the übiquitous Archie. The ‘shoot’ was progressing satisfactorily, and our battery would soon be all ranged. Our engine had been running very badly, and had the ‘shoot’ been less Important we should have returned home; but the target was a special Hun bridge, and the battery was shooting excellently. Airplane on Fire.

“Suddenly a smell of burning “wood reached my nostrils. Looking down, I saw the framework near my feet blackened and smoldering. The engine’s back-firing must have made a torch of the exhaust. I switched off the petrol supply and opened out the throttle. One steep, swift dive and the fire was out. /‘Then I hesitated. Should we hurry for home and safety, or continue the ‘shoot,’ in which a very little more observing would bring complete success? I turned to the observer. He leaned over and inspected the damage. It was not very bud, really. He shouted into my ear: “Let’s carry on.” “I climbed again and we continued to ‘shoot.’ Our battery was very soon firing as a battery —all guns—our last message having completed the registration ; and now shells were dropping about the target. Our part was done -r-pretty well, too —and in a few minutes the bridge was entirely destroyed. In our excitement the faulty engine had been forgotten until, with one last splutter, it gave out completely. It stopped. “The machine was really on fire this time and I was too late. The woodwork was burning independently of petrol and exhaust, and to dive now would only fan the flames about my feet. Yet we had to get to the ground, and very quickly, too.

Quite a Wild Affair. “I put the machine into a violent side-slip away from the line. The flames wfere thus fanned toward the opposite wing. The observer, leaning over my shoulder, squirted the fire extinguisher about my feet, which enabled me to keep control of the rud-

der bar. We were down to 1,500 feet, but the heat was intense. “The Are had reached the right wing. Things were getting more and more exciting. Would the fabric continue to support us? I pushed down the nose to hasten our descent, keeping the machine also in a side-slip. The rush of air slightly changed the direction of the flames. Now we were nearly down. There were a few shell holes and hardly any hedges. Unless we were unlucky we should not meet any serious obstacle. “The ground rushed toward us. I took off the ‘bank’ and ‘flattened out.’ One landing wheel touched with a bump, broke away and continued its course independently. The machine pirouetted on tne remaining wheel and finally crashed on its nose and left wing. It was quite a wild affair, but we were unhurt. “Springing to the ground, we hurried away from the burning wreck just in time, for a second later the petrol tank exploded. We just looked at each other and never said a word, but neither of us regretted having chanced it and finished our job.”