ON THE WINGS OF WAR.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 16478, 22 March 1919, Page 10

ON THE WINGS OF WAR.

~ , . -4 HOSVi MR BONAR LAW FLEW TO PARIS. / We can now lift the veil a trifle on the war activities ,of Ministers and distinguished soldiers, showing a few things' about which it was wise to be silent' during the fighting (says the London "Daily Express"), Few people were aware, for instance, of the way .in - which Field-Marshal Haig or Marshal Foch in France would ring up the Prime Minister, in London, and how the latter in a-quiet conversational tone, sitting at his • table in Downing. street, would say over the Channel wire: "I say, Haig, can you run over and' see us for a few hours?" . . . General Sykes, the distinguished Chief 'of Staff of the Air Ministry, thought nothing of standing at his desk at the Hotel Cecil "about half-past two in the afternoon, dashing off to General Headquarters to confer with the heads over there in France, and 1 - sitting down quietly to dinner in his club in London the same evening. It could only be done, of course, by air. It is well known that the Chancellor of the Exchequer went to great councils in France in the thick of the fighting by aeroplane. How was it done? Take the visit of October 6th to 10th —only a few weeks ago, yet what worlds-a way 1 .We were in the .vortex of the struggle even >then with the most terrible military Power in history. The Supreme War Council in France had to organise ahead with all sorts of; plans, and some of the planning was tor the next two years. Air Lloyd George was over there, and at 6.30 p.m.on October sth he sent word to London that' the Central Powers had asked for | an armistice. He wanted Mr Bonar Law, Mr Balfour, and Lord Robert Cecil to go over to Paris the next morning. CROSSING THE CHANNEL. \ An alert .private secretary—one of those strange men of Whitehall and Downing street who, during the war, discovered the secret of perpetual motion —took up the receiver, asked for the Air Ministry, and in a few'moments it was arranged that two, machines of a communication squadron at Hendon should stand .by early next morning, and that a car should be waiting at Le Borget Aerodrome;in France to whisk 1 the • Chancellor and a secretary off to Paris when the aeroplane should, glido down to French soil within three yards of the said car. It was the quickest thing ever known in attending a council of war. "I say,' r came a voice on; the 'phone from Hendon at -8.30 a.m., "it's alj very well you, doing this stunt, but the weather is atrocious. Flying is quite impossiblo—what?—oh, no, it's not likely to clear until to-morrow—you must go?—well, all right—it's just like" the Government."

As the weather improved the Chancellor started off to flendon shortly after 10 a.m. They put him into a flying coat, helmet, and gloves, and served his secretary tho same, and within a few seconds, in a forty-railo gale, they hud risen to 8700 feet. They crossed London, and _ arrived at Dover about noon. Two-thirds of tho way across the Channel they bashed into a tierce storm, They returned to Dover and lunched in the R.A.F. mes3. Men like Admiral Roger Keyes and Captain. Hamilton Bonn, M.P., looked in to soe them. About two o'clock they went up into tho air again, and crossed tho Channel, shore to shore, in a few seconds under ten minutes. They followed tho coast a while; and overtook that storm again. They circled three or four times, and oventually the Chancellor'« machine dashed through it at 800 feet.

LLOYD GEORGE'S GREETING. Ho had done nothing so rapid since his speeches in the House when at times Mr Bonar Law goog at a rate at which few shorthand writers on earth can follow hip —excopt at a distance.. It was delightful to notice the apparent, ease arid confidence: with, which tho pilots started on _ what "to them was no more than stopping into a taxi to go to their club to luncheon." • The Chancellor knew when Paris, was near because ho sighted the Eiffel Tower. -They landed at Le BorgotAorodrome at 3.30 p.nfc Mr Bonar Law took three striaos to the waiting car, wHich rattled him off to the' British Embass-" in Paris where he found Air Lloyd George in the garden. "Oh Lord, here you are! I had' given you up for lost," said the Prime Minister, who was delighted as a boy over tho Chancellor's'rough air ride.