FIGHTS IN THE AIR.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 14607, 17 May 1918, Page 4

FIGHTS IN THE AIR.

RICHTHOFEN'S DEATH

(Australian Official Correspondent.) WEST FRONT, Mafth 27. In conjunction with the Royal Air Force, Australian machine gunners claim to have participated m shootinc down Baron Richthofen, the famous German airmen. About 11* o'clock on the morning of March 21, the troops along the Somme and the Ancre had heard distant popping f rom two fleets of British and German aeroplanes, which had been fighting; high over the German lines, when a German plane was seen diving after a British plane. The two machines, winch became detached from the flight, came bo low that they were temporarily hidden by the hills from the Bight of the Australian gunners and troops around them.

Presently the sound of approaching engines was heard, and low over the crest of the lulls by the river came a British, plane, making directly towards a position -where two Lewis guns were. Behind' his . plane could be seen the wings of a German plane pursuing. The German was pressing the English plane desperately, close-firing with short bursts from his machine gun. Some of the troops on the hillside, before they saw the German aeroplane, thought the shots

were meant for them and ducked under cover behind a bank. When about 100 yards away from the nearest Lewis gun, the German plane, which at first had been obscured by the British plane, was now sufficiently clear to enable the guns to fire on it without risk of hitting the British machine: Both guns fired. The German plane the next instant , wavered 1 unsteadily, steered m a i sharp circle to the left, and then shot like a spear down m a steep, long angle to the ground, about 400 yards from the Lewis gunners. An officer standing by told me he clearly saw fragments of wood and) metal flicked from the machine when it burst m the air.