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Show STARTLING STORIES : MM BOELKE News Agency Summarizes Reports of Air Battles of Famous Aviator. BERLIN, Dec. 15, by wireless to Say-vilie. Say-vilie. Replete with dramatic incidents and interesting: features are the reports just published of the late Captain Boeike, tiie famous German aviator, who brought down forty hostile aeroplanes during his service wiih the army, which ended with iiis death October 29 last. As summarized sum-marized by the Overseas News agency, i ne ivpons from the field included the lullowine: The rt-ports siiow that in the majority or air engagements the distance between tne combatants usually was about 100 meters, but often only thirty to forty meters. On November 2, 1915, Boeike approached a French aviator as close as Hi ree meters. "He fled," says Boeike' s report, "but it did not help him, for I was much quicker. I fired SitO shots, keeping up the fire until he began to fall. I had approached up to a distance of three meters and still he had not begun to come down. At the moment a collision seemed inevitable I turned my machine rapid iy on its left side. The enemy turned his upside down on the right hand, I did not see him, any more." On March 4, 1916. Boeike reported: "Again I approached the enemy, who already had been violently fired upon. Then i saw something most peculiar. The observer had climbed upon the left wing of the machine and was clinging to the supports. He looked at me as if quite terrified and waved his hand. I had shot away every piece of the helm and the machine had pitched downward. In order again to get it in balance the observer ob-server had seated himself on the left wing." Boeike reported a grewsome incident as occurring on ono of the last of his raids on October 8 of this year. "I wondered at the stubbornness of the enemy," wrote the aviator, "considering that he must have been finished a long time ago, but he continued to circle in the same fashion. Reason told me that the man must be dead and that the machine was being maintained in its rigid position only by the rubber bands at the helm. Therefore, I approached closely and saw the occupant of the machine ma-chine leaning toward the right side, dead. The airplane bore the number 7495. The horrible picture left me unshaken. I let the man alone and attacked the next one." |