A DARING AVENGER.

Colonist, Volume LX, Issue 14642, 21 February 1918, Page 2

A DARING AVENGER.

A strange story comes from' America t afcoul a •well-known German racing eye- «. list Walter Rutt, who for some twelve years back laced with considerable sue-, c cess in Australia, and mere recently t lias carried off som* ox the biggest j events in America—including turee < New York "6 days" race*.' It appears that for many months last year, the 1 French lines were frequcisttiy visited by < an enemy aviator, known as the l 'Grey Ghost," whose daring raids on : the Western front caused J&uch comment in ' the military' crimps.- At last the Men- . tity of die "Grey Giaost" has been un- ■ masked and found to be none other thaii out one time -visitor, Walter Rutt. : The news of Rutt's-death was cabled to America in November last. A letter from a member of the American Ambulance Unit in France, written before Rutt was'• brought to earth; gives the following interesting details of the ' German's tactics. "We had a peculiar —not to say weird —thing on this i'rorit. T&ere is a German aviator here who . calls himself 'Fantoinas' or the Ghost. His name is Walter Rutt, and he used to be a bicycle rider in the six-day races in New York. Well, it appears from the notes that he has dropped.' that he has had three brothers killed in the war. and to avenge them he has adopted a plan of strafing the French from all aeroplane. He never fights other planes or makes observations, but just flies over the French lines at a height varying- from 30 to 400 feet, and everything he'sees, even* one poilu or waggon or auto he dives at it, banging away with his machine gun. He attacks sentinel posts and supply trains, and once or twice he has even shot into aviation camps, winning a unique place as a.dangerous pilot. You havj no idea of the amount of damage he does. Hei certainly-has "the respect 6f the Frenchmen here in this sector, where he fiiesj almost exclusively. He hovers around | all day long, and although he has T>een shot at with machine guns, rifles, and anti-aircraft guns he never seems to be touched. It certainly is mysterious, because he often comes close enough for us to hit him with a-stone. It was he who dropped the warning about th-3 hospital being bombed, -about which 1 told, you •'in'-my i last. letter. *'