WOUNDED SAVED BY AEROPLANES

Otautau Standard and Wallace County Chronicle, Volume XI, Issue 561, 22 February 1916, Page 2

WOUNDED SAVED BY AEROPLANES

. + UNIQUE INCIDENT IN GREAT SERBIAN RETREAT. The later stages of the great Serbian retreat were no less terrible than the earlier ones (says R. Franklin Tate m the 'Daily News'). On November 24 the 150,000 fugitives collected together afc i Prisrend found themselves cut off from Monastir and Montenegro. The only issue leffc open for escape from the clutches of the enemy was the almost inaccessible range of mountains— over 3,000 ft m height— across Northern Albania to Scutari, a distance of over 100 miles. Here the retreating army had to bury or destroy its last motor cars, lorries, cannons, munitions, and. material generally to prevent them falling into the enemy's hands. As for the women and children who had dragged themselves so far, there was no longer any hope of their escaping by flight across the inhospitable mountains. In the midst of the panic Colonel Fournier, the French Military Attache, collected together all the French missions of Serbia (with the exception of the medical mission, which had had time to escape to Montenegro by way of Jakovitza and Ipek) — aviators, motor mechanics, and wireless telegraphy operators, making m all a detachment of over 200 Frenchmen — viz., 3 sailors, 94 motor mechanics, 125 officers and men of the Flying Corps, and 5 telegraphists. The officers collected together all their pecuniary resources — 18,000fr (£72o)— for the purchase of horses and provisions. In this way they managed, by paying exorbitant prices, to lay m a stock of oats, 10 live sheep, and 70 horses already exhausted by two months' incessant retreat. The most serious problem was the rescue of the sick and wounded. It was impossible to think of carrying them across the mountains. It was equally impossible to think of deserting them. In this predicament Colonel Fournier thought of the aeroplanes, of which there were still half a dozen m fairly good condition, although they had been flying m all weathers for the last two and a-half months. It was decided to send the worst cases by aeroplane to Scutari. It was a bold project, brilliantly and successfully accomplished, and probably the first instance of flying craft being used for ambulance work.