AIRMEN FROM OVER THE SEAS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 22, 20 October 1917, Page 9

AIRMEN FROM OVER THE SEAS

TRIBUTE TO THE DOMINIONS

FRENCH APPRECIATION

The following appreciation of the airmen of the Oversea British Dominions is by Baron d'Estouraelles de Constant, reporter to the Senate Committee on Aerial and Submarine Navigation:—

I have been able to estimate the progress of English aviation by tho number ,of flying schools. I will not say how many there aro. Tho figure would seem improbable and, moreover, the English do not like to say what they are going to do. They bluff in just tho opposite of the usual style; they say nothing, and then come out with extraordinary results, to the astonishment of their adversaries. I. can only repeat what 1 say whenever I come back from England; tho Germans are doomed, and nothing can save them except our internal dissensions or divisions among the Allies. To show that Germany is doomed, I need mention only one fact out of many. Germany is -using up her men freely, and sho is exhausting the supply. She can only renew it from one year to'another, and this is not enough. England, on the. other hand, has reserves everywhere. Like the Germans, Italians, ami Russians, she has her high birth-rate and her constant supplies of strong and healthy young men. She hns colonial troops, though not so many as wo have; but, beyond all this, she hae volunteers from her great free colonies. Every ono of her colonies might almost have been regarded, before the war, as practically useless frojn tho military point of view, and yet every one is giving her inexhaustible supplies. Let us take, for instance, New Zealand, a far-away country, two months' journey from London, thinly populated in proportion to its large area, and liayiug barely a million inhabitants—men, women, and children—all told. New Zealand has, nevertheless, supplied, in addition to money, a contingent of 80,000 splendid volunteers, already trained by the discipline of sport and by flu activity which is better than any military system. It has been the same with South Africa, which was in open revolt against KnirInnd twenty years ago, and is now standing up with her in defence of the same cause—liberty; and it is the same with Canada.

The English aviation schools are opening their doors to all these great recruiting sources. I cannot give details of what I saw, but a general survey enabled me to realise, for the first time, what Hie British Empice is. I had a vision, if I may so express it, of this Empire in flesh and blood, in action, one in body and mind. This was my vision-.—

I was visiting an entirely now aerial gunnery school at , opened last winter on the model of our old school at Gizaux (barely two years old, but a classic already!) I admired its equipment, intended to pave the way for sfill larger establishments of the same kind. In tho evening I dined* at the officers' and pilots' mess (all the pilots are officers), and eat at the right hand of the commander of the echool. himself a young officer, who exercised the same kind of influence as that of the captain of a football team. About 200 officers and pilots, all spick and span, sat • round the table,- which was decorated with flowers and served like any other -'self-respecting* English table. In tlio morning I had seen all these young men at work, flying about, even dropping into the sea and coming out -unharmed. In tho evening I liud seen them play cricket, and talked to them. All were volunteers, drawn alike from the great English schools and tho colonies.

The proportion of colonials struck me as very large—about a quarter. Here arc the figures for only one school. Out of 210 present I counted 22 Canadians, 16 Australians, five New Zealanders. seven South Africans, and two from India and China—all fine, strong young fellows, full of courage'and confidence. I questioned the commander. How meritorious it is, I remarked, for all these young men to do what they havo dono! Their fathers' great object in quitting old Europe was to have nothing more to do with our disputes and to bo able to livo tlioir own lives in peace, and now tho sons are coming back of their own accord, and aro giving up everything lo servo'in tho Army. "They haven't given up anything," quietly answered (he commander; "on the contrary, they are defending tho existence. they had begun to build up. Gorman domination would have made it impossible. Their futuro is just as much at stake as the futuro of Europe. After the victory they, or others in their place, will tako up the work again." I then asked the commander-for some information about his family. "I come from Vancouver," he said. "There are ten of us—six boys and four, girls. My youngest sister is still at school. Tho six boys are, or havo been, on the French front. Three of them are airmen. One, a captain, has U\c Croix do Guerre. Three have been wounded several times, and two have been badly wounded. Three of my sisters are nurses." He then showed me a photograph of a family group comprising six line, upright young men, happy and smiling, and three girls,, little more than children. All of them had left their home on the Pacific Coast and crossed the American continent aiul the Atlantic to come ami help the French Army against German domination, and to sptve, not merely their own country, but liberty and humanity.