COURAGE AND CHIVALRY.

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 145, 16 December 1933, Page 10

COURAGE AND CHIVALRY.

The fighting airman must be able to resist the strain of the maddening sudden turns of a fight in curves and spirals, and having taken part in desperate fights, in the course of which the machines of his comrades, fatalty hit by the enemy's machine-gun fire, have fallen' into fathomless depths, he must still maintain his uudiminished pluck and fighting spirit. And apart from all these requirements the commander of a squad has to devote attention and energy to tho training of his youngest pupils. He has to eliminate the unfit and select the fittest. Every experienced air force officer was well aware of the fact that all young fighting squad flyers had inevitably to pass through a critical period, resulting from first impressions in tho field, before they came to understand the whole pitiless nature of an air combat. It is certain that not all had the nerve to stand the test of this critical period of transition, and not all were honest enough to admit it. Those, however, who overcame the moral and physical perils of their training, became for the fighting squad the valuable gift of the gods, the elite among airmen. The highest aim of these "knights of the air" has in all cases been indomitable courage and chivalry, qualities that developed in. spite of all hatred between nation and nation, a strong and lasting tie with the old enemy who had in those days of war the same qualities of chivalry and courage.