THE AIR PIRATE.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 70, 22 March 1919, Page 17

THE AIR PIRATE.

A ViSIOfU OF 1925.

He na- first heard of in the autumn of 1025. Hashing hi? wireless challenge from tlie sky. He dived through the clouds on a gusty, squally afternoon, and held up the ! Norwegian mailboat Dagmar, bound from Bergen to Newcastle. He fired a shell fifty yards ahead of the steamer and ordered her by wireless to stop. ;Sne idid not reply, so he circled round and dropped a bomb, which missed her by inches and threw up a mighty column of water on her port* side just forward oi the bridge. Then her captain decided that, as he v.is unarmed he had no alternative but to protect his ship and the lives of the passengers by obeying the air-raider's command. He telegraphed to the engine-room; the Daimai" loot way, and lioated quietly on the sea. The flying pirate, his hull and wings painted a dead black, glided down beside his victim.

"Am boarding you. My guns are trained," lie wirelessed laconically.

He came aboard in a dinghy which was lowered from one of the giant floats ot his seaplane. He was a big blonde fellow, and his first words proclaimed him a German.

•'You haf fifty tou=and pounds in Norwegian goldt for der Bank of Scotland, nicht war? Well, I demand dat goldt. -Mine guns will blow up your ship if 1 not get it."

The captain of the Dagmar sprang upon the German, there ensued a short and fierce tussle, and then a revolver shot rang out. Captain Han-en staggered and fell. The German carried his bags of Norwegian geld over Hansen's dead body, and dropped them one by one into hia dinghy.

Between September and December about a dozen ships were attacked. All carried bullion and all were despoiled. Then the Governments moved. By this time it had been definitely ascertained that the air-pirate was a nfty-ton Lanz[Pyunipier seaplane which had been stolen jfrom a German yard by a mad political ;desperado named Pfulzer.

His dozen victims to date had been spread over the seven seas —an American liner a hundred miles west of Ireland, a big Japanese <->lT Valparaiso, a P. and 0. in the Indian Ocean; these indicated his widu range and cosmopolitan choice. Then, mad with success and pride, Pfalzor tapjied liU ] i-l indolence across the world's bu-y waterways. "The White Star liner Delphic must sail from Now York at midday on January 1, lS!2t>, carrying one million pounds in English gold. She will follow her usual route. When and vhere 1 command she will hand over this gold to mc. It may be the lir=t day out, or the ilast. Failing delivery, I shall sink her." J The Governments chuckled. Pfalzer ■ had played his ia-t hand. I The Delphic loft Xi-w York exactly at ,mid-day on January 1. Jest before suni set on January 3 Pfalzer sparked his orders down the sky. '"I am here! Lay to." . : ; . ■ The- engines of the DelpTrie slowed I down, and presently her mighty hulk jswung idly on the quiet waters. Almost lat once three tiny isinsle-seater fighting I "planes- gathered speed along her cleared decks and lifted into the air. The black silhouette of the pirate floated unsuspectingly down out of the i sunset. [ All the passenger* had been ordered ibelow, but the captain and officers were 'on the bridge. machine guns were imanned. and anti-aircraft ratings were jstanding-to. J The sky became suddenly a theatre jof intense and vivid action. Machine i.suns popped like far champagne corks in ■the clouds. The raider was caught in .three converging stream* of vicious "tracer" bullet,. The little fighters darted and swerved above and around him. He dived and came down low over I the sea —a vast, unwieldy, stricken bird lof prey. The single-seaters followed ;iihn down, drenching him with fire, keejving him within the angry cone of their [bullets.

"lie's smoking." said the DelphiVs captain grimly. "In half a minute he'll be ablaze. And that'll be the last of Pfalzer."

At five hundred feet over the sea the big pirate turned desperately upon his attackers and climbed through them to a thousand feet or more. Then he put up his noso and -.stalled." The flames licked greedily backwards from his engines through all his hull to bis tailplane.*.

On fire and completely out of control, he flopped over and spun down to the sea. Uhen the boats from the Delphic reached tho place a quarter of an hour later they found only a few patches of oil and some splintered fragments of wood.—

--MGHTHAWK, in the "Daily MaiL"