FIGHTING IN THE AIR.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVI, Issue 310, 30 December 1915, Page 7

FIGHTING IN THE AIR.

A Paris message to the "New York Herald" says: — A bi'ttle between a French aeroplane, loaded with ninety millimetre bombs, and a fast double-cngined German aeroplane, was one of the incidents of the battle of the Champagne when the Allied offensive was at its height. The French machine had set out to destroy a line of railroad back of the German lines, when the German craft emerged from a cloud.

The air battle began immediately. Almost as soon as it commenced the machine gun in the French aeroplane jammed. "Dive! Dive!" shouted the observer to the pilot. The machine plunged in a swift curve, but the German, no less prompt, dived too, and continued to fly around the French machine, which was hampered by the weight of the bombs it carried. After firing his carbine until his supply of cartridges was exhausted, it occurred to the French observer that an abrupt landing would be fatal to him and to his pilot unless the fusee wore removed from the bombs. He coolly set about hiking out the fuses, and had just finished the task when a 'bullet struck him in thu back, and a moment later another shattered one wrist. The pilot was bit in the eye by a piece of the propeller, which had been knocked off by a bullot. Again he was wounded in the abdomen, and fainted. Then the observer seized the levers, and guided the machine into the French trenches. The destruction by Lieutenant —, of the Aviation Corps, in the Champagne, of a German captive balloon of the type known as "sausage," which had been mentioned in n French official statement, if declared to have been a particularly brilliant and difficult feat,' for these balloons arc guarded carefully. Determined to get rid of this particu : lar balloon, by means o{ which the Germans hnd been enabled to obtain valuable information regarding the movements of French troops, Lieutenant experimented for two months with (ire balls. When he was convinced that he had an explosive which met all his requirements, he started out for the attack on the balloon. The aeroplanes guarding the balloon, moored fifteen miles behind the German lines, were so vigilant the lieutenant had to try four times before ho could rise above it. On the fourth attempt ho swooped clown in a giddy flight from a neight of 10.000 ft, and placed hig missiles accurately before the balloon could be nauled down. In dropping his fire bombs the Frenchman camo near enough to the earth to be in full range of German anti-air craft guns, but ho managed to rise safely, and escaped in a hurricane of bursting shrapnel.