PLUCKY AUSTRALIAN AIRMAN.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 13575, 31 December 1914, Page 7

PLUCKY AUSTRALIAN AIRMAN.

AVIATOR'S CREED STATED.

MELBOURNE; Dec. 23.. Daring exploits have to be put to the credit of Harry. Busteed, the Melbourne motor mechanic. He has been continuously on service with the navy and army since the war began, and has shared in many successful aeroplane raids on sea and land. Flight-Lieutenant Busteed, as he now is, reconnoitred and dropped bombs for three months without any unnecessary pause. He was repeatedly' the mark for German anti-aircraft guns and sharpshooters' , rifles, but it was a torpedo that eventually winged him. He was returning from France in the cruiser Hermes, when a torpedo from a German submarine blew him into the water with a fractured leg. He was picked up" by a destroyer and .ordered* io take n r«at and collect a new Mt.

In a letter to his sister he* tells of his flights over .the German lines, and states the aviator's jcreed. In mid-air, on land and on water he will go anywhere and do anything, he says, and ihe risk of the adventure will heighten the joy. But he has one thing at the back of -his mind— if he must die, he wants to die bravely. "This aort of thine;," he writes 1 , referring to the fate of the Hermes, 'Ms in the game of war, and it pleased God that I should come through. So I ask you to look on things bravely, bearing in mind that all ablebodied men's lives belong to their^ King and countrv, and many thousand better men than I have given themselves willingly. So if it pleases God that I may be called to drop out, ask God in your prayer to assist me to do it bravely."