Cuckoo Tactics.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16203, 4 May 1918, Page 8

Cuckoo Tactics.

Our readers will have noticed that the anti-militarists, the "Red Feds," ct hoo genus omne, fully understand the art of "peaceful penetration,'' like the Power whom they seem so anxious to aid. Wherever possible they worm themselves into somo existing body, and gradually try to fjet a controlling influence, which they aro frequently able to do owing to the apathy and indifference of a mar jcrity of tho other members. It is not often, however, th.it they proceed quite so openly and flagrantly to imitate tho cuckoo who kicks the rightful owners out of the nest into which it has intruded, as was done by the extremists who found their way- into tho. ranks of the Second Division League. Tho loyalist members will bo foolish, we think, to allow themselves to be ousted so unceremoniously without mailing v somo attempt to ascertain and assert their rights. The - first plank of tho constitution of the Second IXvision j League states among its objects as: " (a) To assist the Government to bring " tho war to a victorious conclusion, and "to secure by constitutional methods "the conservation and general welfare "of all soldiers and their dependants

"in New Zealand." The patriots who framed and supported the resolution urging members of the Second Division to defy the law and refuse to fight until they get more pay can hardly be said to be ''assisting the Government to " bring the war to a victorious conclu- " sion," or to bo confining themselves to 'constitutional methods." Surely iti is they who ought to leave the League and not the loyalists. We hope the latter will not take this sort of thing lying down. Let them see what tho law will do for them, if the cuckoos insist on retaining possession of the nest. They have the famous case of tho United Free Church of Scotland and the "Wee "Frees" as a precedent, wo give this advice, assuming that they wish to go on with their agitation by constitutional methods. We warn thom, however, that thero is a growing feeling in tlio public mind that the agitation is rather late—that it would have carried greater weight, had it been raised when tho married men in tho earlier classes enlisted for service or were called up. Many people think that the Second Division will now be well advised if they rest content with the improvements in tho scale which they have secured from the Government. This feeling, wo need hardly say. has been very much accentuated by the outrageous behaviour of thoso who apparently have been seeking to make tho League a cloak for thoir own lawlessness.

Our cables yesterday gavo one of tho too infrequent glimpses permitted to us of the glorious work done by "the bov in tho aeroplane," to use .the phrase coined recently by Major Baira, Under-Secretary of State for the Air Ministry. ISven now it is only because the extraordinary feats of Lieutenants Ferraro and McLeod won for them the Victoria Cross that we are allowed to. know their names and ars told something of their performances. Under circumstances requiring probably no less courago than was shown by theso two, our airmen aro daily carrying out work of an extremely valuable character. "Fighting enemy 'planes is only one of their duties, though, of course, one of the most important. How thoroughly they do it may bo judged from, Major Baird's statement that in one month 139 enemy machines had been definitely ascertained to have been destroyed by our airmen, thirteen others destroyed by gunfire, and 122 shot down out of control. Tho record of our men during the present offensive, as we showed lately by quoting tho figures given in Sir Douglas Haig's official reports, must bo even better than this.

Tho work of the fighting machines is the most thrilling part of the war in the air, but it is mainly done in tho course of protecting the observation and bombing planes, which are of supreme importance in tho operations of the Army. As Major Baird said, the airman is the eyes of the infantry, the gunners, and the Staff. It is by the aid of his photographs of the enemy's positions—l6,B37 such photographs were taken last September in France alone—that the Staff plans operations and the troops are enabled to attack "a* complicated system of wire entanglements, pill-boxes, and machine-gun emplacements, of which all they themselves can see would be the first-line trenches." It is tho airman's information that enables the firo of a heavy gun to be directed on to a target fifteen miles away.

In one day montioned by the Minister, 12/ enemy batteries were by this means successfully "engaged to destruction,'' a phrase which means that our guns wore ranged on the targets so as to keep up a continuous lire until the gunners ran away, or the batteries were put out of action— until in fact, tho boy in tho aeroplane signalled, 'You havo done it in.' " On the same day twenty-eight gun-pits were destroyed, eighty damand sixty explosions of ammunition caused. Aft astonished House chorused, "In on© day?" and was assured that that was so. Furthermore on the same day thirty-four hostile batteries were successfully engaged to destruction owing to balloon observation-. That, as the Minister said, was a most wonderful achievement.

There remains to be mentioned the bombing of militaiy points. In two months over 12,000 bombs, weighing altogether 238 tons, were dropped, and during the present offensive activity in this direction has been greatly increased. So also has the machinegunning of enemy troops, in which, as much as 200,000 rounds of ammunition have been expended in a month. Major Baird could not give any details of the work of the Royal Naval Air Service. The secrecy of tho British Navy governs its operations. But he declared that there was nothing the commander of a.German submarine was more anxious to shun than the British seaplane manned by tho Naval Air Service, whose work was beyond all praise.

The literaturo of the aerial side of tho war has lately been cnriched by a book, "An Airman's Wife," which presehts the life of the wife who waits and watches at home, and in whose story are incorporated letters from her husband on service. It is said that they are true chronicles of an airman's acatual experiences, but they are so amazing that one has difficulty in believing it, for no one could imagine the adventures which form almost the daily round of tho fighting airman. We must content ourselves with one quotation, which describes one adventure out of many of a member of an air patrol, who was known as tho "Air Hog," becauso he went "Hun-strafing mad," and moped if the weather stoppod his flying.

"His machino had been hit when ho was flying iow at about 4500 feet. A gas attack and a big bombardment was on at tho time. The shell hit the engine and burst on percussion. It blew out part of the engine, tore off tho under carriage, and made a big hole in the bottom of the fuselage. The 'Air Hog' was hit in the legs by fragments of shell. He found himself sitting in an open framework with one leg dangling down useless. With the other, tho left, although the ankle was smashed, he managed to steer. Though the balance was all wrong, ho forced his machine down in a steady glide, avoided some trees and choso a clear place to land. He crashed on landing, of course, but crawled out of the lio!e in front and was found by the ambulanco men n few minutes later. Ho was perfectly conscious and never lost consciousness the whole time."

He lived, min.ua a leg, to tell the tale,

and, for such are his kind, in all probability to bemoan the ill-fortune that prevented him going "Hun-strafing" again. f There was a certain grim humour in Mr Perry Robinson's description of the fight at Ridge Wood, where the Germans, in successive waves, came on with fixed bayonets. As they were not to bo stopped with Lewis guns and rifle fire, "the British obliged them," and dashing out with fixed bayonets also, "got well home and drove them off pellmell." Kipling has noted in "The Ballad of the Clamphcrdown" the samo willingness of the Briton to "oblige" his enemy. "When the foreign cruiser lias battered the under-gunned Clampherdown at her leisure she closes on her victim. The British captain speaks. "They have asked for the steel; they shall have it now, Out cutlasses, and board!" Thereupon the Clamphcrdown's crew "got well home," and captured the cruiser. Wo need a Kipling on the Western front theso days to immortalise combats as terrible and as, glorious as any that he ever imagined;