GALLANT AIRMAN.

Hokitika Guardian, 6 April 1918, Page 4

GALLANT AIRMAN.

HELD CRUMBLING LINE. SOMKWHERE IN FRANCE, Jan 20 A stirring story of how one British aviator, like a guardian angel, held up for a whole day repeated enemy attacks upon a weak and crumbling British line at Cafnbrai, in the height of the desperate struggle there, by using four airplanes, one after another, as they were torn and crippled by enemy fire, lias just come to light.

It shows that some of the most daring and dangerous airplane work ot the past year has been in the new field of attacking enemy infantry from the air.

The Germans were trying to recover a portion of the lost Hindenburg line, pushing with a great weight of men and guns where it was difficult for the British to bring up reserves. The British battalion opposing the attack had gone' to earth in little isolated groups among the .shell holes, grimly determined to hang on to the end.

The German masses had already moved across No Man’s Land into the battered earthworks that once formed the British firing line. Other masses were moving up in support, and already the nearest shell holes were heaving and boiling over with the restless heads and shoulders of men about to renew the advance. The barrage of the British guns was heavy, but, at close quarters, only infantry can stop the progress of infantry, and the fire from the British shell holes had grown weak and straggling. It looked as if the scanty British lire would he overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers.

ENTERS TUB BRITISH FLIER. The fire from the Germans increased until' the air was alive with their bullefs It was the concentrated fire which always precedes the rush to close quarters. The bluegrey figures -were already beginning to appear above shell holes, their loose, flapping uniforms and hideous gas masks giving them the appearance of demons, when suddenly into the smoke and murk of battle there dived a British airplane. Fifty feet from the ground it flattened out and skidded along the line, dropping its bombs among the bewildered Germans. Wheeling swiftly at the Hank of the attack, it came skimming back like a swallow chaining a swarm of flies, its machine-guns! enfilading the advancing foe and driving him back to his burrows.

A storm of German bullets swept through the planes, and a black, (lame-centred burst of enemy shrapnel smothered theairplane in -vapour. The watching infantry Fuv splinters fall from its quivering frame, and the silvery fabric of the under wings was torn 'in several places by' siiell splinters. But the daring pilot finished his course and vanished into the smoke clouds, leaving the panicstricken enfcrny clinging to his shell holes, too shaken and thinned to press the attack further.

Little by little, however, the German supports came up, advancing by short rushes over the open, reinforcing their comrades by twos and threes, in spite of British fire. Scores and scores of their dead littered No Man’s Land, but gradually the .strength of the attacking line was made good, and the shell holes again began to heave and boil, as men rose from the lower cover and laid hold of the rime oo assist them over the ion.

Then suddenly they were over and away, little spurts of humanity belched out of the crater field, coalescing into a seething, blue-grey, rushing mass, hopelessly outweighing the handful of British defenders. But before the mass could gain full momentum a familiar snoring hum sounded above the din* of battle, and out of the low-lying haze swept the covering airplane, a new machine, but with the same pilot as before. His Ijombs dropped among the advancing Germans, dispering those who escaped the flying fragments, and his machine guns swept them but of sight into the shell holes.

*' SENDS GERMANS TO COVER. A half hour passed, and again the enemy attempted to attack, this time hesitatingly and with diminishing spirit. Again the airplane appeared, and the first rattle of his guns sent the Germans into cover. A German airplane dashed down to drive him away, but another British machine from the pi’otecting patrol came down on the German’s tail and sent him behind his own lines. There were other German machines in the offing, but the watchful -.British fighters made the enemy airmen shy of losing their altitude, and the daring British pilot kept his guard over the threatened line without further interference.

Many times he swept down on the Germans, crumpling up every attempted attack with his fire, rendering portions of their positions untenable with his bombs; often rocking madly in the air gusts from a barrage salvo, just as often performing wilder manoeuvres to confuse the gunners and riflemen, who searched for him incessantly. Three times ins airplane was so badly damaged that lie bad to.nurse its failing strength back to his aerodrome. But each time he retained on a new machine, encouraging the British infantry by his example and scattering death among his foes. He was flying his fourth' machine when darkness settled down, putting an en(L to the conflict, with the, Ger- \ wane Securely checked.