HEROES OF THE AIR

Evening Post, Volume XC, Issue 55, 2 September 1915, Page 7

HEROES OF THE AIR

BLIND PILOT, DYING LOOKOUT SHELLED BY THE GERMANS. A MARVELLOUS ESCAPE. (Received September 2, 10.30 a.m.) PARIS, Ist September. A party of Frenchmen were watching the Germans shelling a British monoplane which fell in the German lines. Suddenly it rose up and came down in the French lines. The Frenchmen rushed up and found two seemingly dead bodies under the shapeless mass. As the pilot was picked up he showed signs of life, and whispered, " I am blind. Bring the major; I can give him the results of the reconnaissance." The pilot narrated that after accomplishing his mission shells began toburst at a height of JSOO metres, apparently killing the look-out and blinding the pilot. The latter let go the levers, but heard the look-out feebly cry, " Rise quickly ! " The pilot replied, "I am blind,." The look-out in a still feebler voice cried, " Rise to the right ; we are over the German lines." Following the dying man's directions, the pilot reached the French lines with his comrade dead. DEATH OF PEGOUD SHOT WHILST IN THE AIR. SOURCE OF TERROR TO CROWN PRINCE'S ARMY. LONDON, Ist September. M. Pegoud, the aviator, has been killed. . (Received September 2, 8.30 a.m.) PARIS, Ist September. M. Pegoud was shot dead at a height of 6000 ft. The Germans had' long awaited an opportunity. Pegoud shortly before his death said : " The Germans have sworn to have my blood, but it will cost them dear." Pegoud at the outbreak of war acted as an aerial guard to General Joffre. Later he was a constant source of terror to the Crown Prince's army in the Argonne and Alsace, where he shot down many aeroplanes, his looping and anglegliding baffling his opponents. He was also the hero of innumerable daring bombing feats. [M. Pegoud, in September, 1913, astonished flying , circles by deliberately turning an aeroplane upside down in flight. Previously two aviators — Captain Aubry, of thfe French Army, on a ( Deperdussin machine, and Lieutenant Reynolds, of the British Army, on~ a British biplane, had accidentally flown upside down and landed safely. M. Pegoud used a Bleriot monoplane, slightly modified by the enlargement of the tail and rudder surfaces, and was at once remark ably successful. It was not long before others had attempted the same feat, and V looping the loop " became a popular spectacle. There are few flying men of note who are not able to perform the evolution. Pegoud 's remarkable pioneer achievement probably did more to broaden the scope of flying and to prove man's power to fly in the face of previously deadly conditions than any other since the aeroplane was invented.]