GREEN BUBBLES OF HATE

Gisborne Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 4964, 3 September 1918, Page 3

GREEN BUBBLES OF HATE

AIRMAN’S GRAPHIC STORY

A graphic description of a typical British air raid is given by Captain Paul Bewsher, D.S.C., R.A.F., who writes in the Sydney Sun as follows: “Brudges is the most important naval base in Belgium, and has been so often attacked by British airmen that it is now the best defended place against night bombing on the west front. “As you draw nearer you see the maze of 15 or 1G searchlig'hts moving restlessly over the town, looking for some machine. Suddenly there is the red flash of a bursting bomb, then another and another. Immediately chains of brilliant emerald colored balls of fire pour upwards, their ceaseless lines filling the- sky with green bubbles of light. “The machine is not found, and gradually the lights of the shellfire die away. Now they are drawing nearer, and the observer crawls through his little door into the nose of the machine, examines his bombhandle, and adjusts his bomb-drop-ping night. ■‘As lie, kneels, a heavily muffled figure, in the little wooden cockpit 10,000 feet above nothing, he is so absorbed in watching the ground that his surroundings seem perfectly normal. and he is entirely at ease.” “Below he sees the black line of the canal, which he is using as. a guide. He turns to the pilot with a wave of the hand to.the left, and then to the right, and then stops him with uplifted arm.

THE QUESTING SIGHT-BAR. “Tho observer waves his hand, tho roar of the engines dies into silence as the machine dives towards the target. He unstraps the bomb handle and leans far over in front, looking down- to the shining water of the dock, and absorbed in following the course of the little metal bar of his sight. It touches the dock, then crosses them. With a quick gesture he guides the pilot to the left. The bar sweeps round, crosses the section of the quay he wishes to attack. He checks the pilot and holds the bomb lever in readiness. Hundreds of Germans stand waiting at the guns, the searchlights, and the greenhall machines. Tin? organised hate of a community lies below the observer. but he thinks of nothing except the passage of that metal bar across the hlac-k mass- between the two shining strips of water. “Suddenly the sight registers the range. He pushes the lever forward slowly and pulls it back again. Ho pushes again and again, and from behind there comes tho click and clatter of 14 dropping bombs. He shouts to the pilot to turn, and one huge wing climbs towards the stars as the machine sweeps round and away from the welter of shells and searchlights that the. explosion of the bomb will bring. HATE BREAKS LOOSE.

“Simultaneously with the bursting of the first bomb hundreds of green balls come streaming in swaying curves from the ground, pouring upwards past the wings on both sides like a handful of ribbons. The searchlights fill th e sky with wands of light, weaving strange' patterns all round the town, and close to the machine now bursts a clamorous barrage It is an awe-inspiring din, but 'through it the observer hears the thud of bursting bombs below as he scrambles back to the pilot. “The airmen fly home well content with the consciousness of duty well done. They leave far behind the searchlights, still vainly scorning every quarter of the heavens too late.”