DISASTROUS SEQUEL TO HARMLESS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 24, 23 October 1917, Page 5

DISASTROUS SEQUEL TO HARMLESS

RAIDS A GREAT AIR VICTORY HAIG'S STRATEGY STRIKING GLIMPSE OF THE NEAR FUTURE

The worst blow that has jet been dealt to Gorman hopes of air supremacy is tho defeat, with serious losses, of attacking squadrons which attempted, with small results, to raid England and France. The French official reports, together with various other reliable news services, debit the enemy with a most serious succession of losses. Other crippled raiders axe wandering about the country, while the Allies' aeroplanes are endeavouring to envelop them. Thore is very little definite movement in the West. On the French front the artillery is very active along the Aisne. On the British front the airmen have spent a glorious day in offensive operations against the Germans, who seem to have fared very bedly in the matter of losses. Tho loss of the American transport liner Antilles has caused a great impression in America, whoso people now realise, through their first real war casualty, practically, the need of a genoral hardening and welding of the national spirit. The story of the attack on the convoy of merchantmen off the Shetland Isles reveals yet another aspect of German brutality in -war. The Germans, Tyho held the advantage of position and weight of armament, quickly disposed of the British destroyers, and then, turning to the defenceless merchantmen, deliberately sank them. Tho whole aft air only lasted an hour, at tho end of which timo the Germans scuttled off home at top speed, leaving tho survivors'of their callouß act to struggle for their lives as best they could.