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Show Badiivd Tlxeir Tirsi' Hxiix Planes Home -Trained American Boys Tell How They Shot Down Enemy Fliers From the Sky 7 f T IIAPI'ENKD while we were bowling along a smooth French road that split innumerable innu-merable rrd-tiled villages in jf?; halves on its " way to the fc.V,'. American front, writes Her-jwi'rv Her-jwi'rv man Whitaker in the De-S De-S troit News. 9. A week before I had jour's? jour-'s? neyed around our dying Instruction In-struction stations In sonth France, where our lads were to he seen in training from their first ridiculous ridi-culous "hops" with wing-clipped "penguins" "pen-guins" 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 Benchey or any other of the stunt flyers of five years ago. For in the ordinary or-dinary course of their flying our lads are taught the "vrellle," or tail spin ; the "r e versement." a half loop and fall sideways; to "camel," turning turn-ing over and over sideways like a rolling cask ; the "vertical "ver-tical clrage," a 90-degree bank, said to be a most disagreeable disagree-able first experience; experi-ence; to bank and side slip tlie distance re- quired to elude a pursuer ; a difficult operation opera-tion which the beginner usually usu-ally ends in a If J ' j s t MV, Y j : : j.;-V. I Vk " 1 . 1 UlT. ALAN WNJlOW(Lerr)!rL-lr. Ol(FlAJ CAY?BZjL,7?JrsifMCIfAyArO3J TO J3MJYQ barrel." While dropping from a height of 14,000 feet, I had seen one boy pull almost 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 Amer-ican 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 subma-rine I had seen captured while cruising cruis-ing with our destroyer flotilla in English Eng-lish 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 Na-ture's laws are said to be without exceptions, ex-ceptions, 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 joking. Military Mili-tary law is not unlike that of the Medes and Persians which alterelh nor. Because of some mixup in their passes three correspondents had been "pinched" by the military police and brought back- to 11. G. II. Q. the week before fn a state of uncertainty ns to whether or no they would be shot at sunrise. The sergennt added ns the car rolled on to a slow stop : "You can get by the French military police with any old thing beer check, laundry bilk chewing guni coupon, anything that's .vritten in English and look's oflicial. but when them iron-jaws of ours hold up a band it means you." See Boche Planes. The "iron jaw," however, was relaxed re-laxed In a p'easant 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 avia-tors 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 'M It happened to be Sunday, and in the square we found dozens of women, Boys N s VN w x wn - n ! V; N x X. . x? ViCPC - ' 1 children and pretty French girls, all in their ;o-to-meeting best, elbowing through a mixed crowd of Poilus, 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 out-side the town, and a very few minutes thereafter it opened before, our speeding speed-ing 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 foind two of our crack fliers who had recently been transferred to us from the Lafayettes. One had just received the newly created cre-ated American order 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." Jsually the presence of this one man would be sufficient to set any hangar abuzz with excitement. But today lie and his fellow stars were "suping" in a scene which In its general gen-eral features strongly resembled that created in an average' American household house-hold 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. christen-ing. 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 ad-mitted one and twenty. Alan Wins-low, Wins-low, 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 con-ducted 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 ob-servatory on the top of Mount Hamilton Hamil-ton in central California with Its wooded gorges, deep ravines, cosmic outlook over foothills nnd plains, surely sure-ly an ideal eyrie for. a young eagle. He had taken his ground training at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tech-nology, and was completely American trained. Your fighter is never a tall-er nnd of all fighte s the air men go the limit In slowness of speech. Even after Winslow. the hoary eldei of two and twentv was finally prodded to talk, he left so much- to the Imagination that it Is necessary to till 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 sof clouds high over the flying field. From the sand bag targets, where a machine gun was being lined up and synchronized synchro-nized with the motor, came staccato bursts of firing. Everything was going go-ing on as usual, when in response to a telephone call from some far observation ob-servation post, a bugle shrilled out the "Alerte!" "I was already !n my flying togs, Winslow explained, "and so got into the air at once. Campbell followed follow-ed 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 into 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 1 let fly a burst from my gun. Shot in Second Burst. "The Boche answered, but already I had banked steeply on a half loop that carried me above him ; then describing de-scribing a 'vrellle;' that is, a tall spin. I came squarely behind and shot him down with my second burst. "By that time Campbell was chasing chas-ing his man like a hqwk after a running run-ning 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 con-test 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 look-ing them over Campbell added the last humane touch to the story. In sky warfare alone, it Is said, have the Germans Ger-mans displayed any chivalry, a thing that is quite understandable. The uttermost ut-termost "bravery called for in those desperate luels up there in the wide and lonely vault of heaven Is always associated with chivalric spirit. The knightly tradition still obtain? nnd this lad's utterance proved thai our boys can be depended upon to uphold up-hold it.. "My fellow was wearing an iron cross. I wanted It badly, but the poor devil was suffering enough from his bums. I hadn't the heart to take It from him." c 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.5' By a quick combination of acrobatics acrobat-ics he bad learned during Instruction Winslow hud got his man. And as I thought of the quick-witted lady that are now getting the same training not by the tens and twenties but by hundreds hun-dreds nnd thousands, I mentally echoed a favorite exclamation of the British Tommy : "Poor old Fritz!" |