AIRMEN AT MESSINES.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 7922, 23 August 1917, Page 4

AIRMEN AT MESSINES.

EXCELLED THEMSELVES IN AUDACITY. Describing in the * ‘ Daily Mail ’ ’ the work of the British flying men at the battle of Messines, Mr W. Beach Thomas said:— The airmen excelled themselves in audacity. They lent almost gaiety to the grimness of a battle fought among eruptions of earth and a medley of rusted wire. They mobbed the enemy as swallows will mob a cat. They kept swooping down to within a few hundred feet of the earth. Whenever they saw a collection of German “rats” moving in their runs or across the open they played owl as well as hawk. We heard them humming enemywards half the night, and the buzz of their wings overhead cheered the soldiers, so men told me, more than anything. They bombed I do not know how many trains and railway centres, and sought out for special notice scores of the enemy’s aerodromes. Space does not allow me to tell a tenth of the astounding experiences of these airmen. The one who upset the motor car had half-a-dozen other adventures on the way back. He never rose above 5000 feet, and while hawking just above the ground he came first upon four gun teams, which he fired into; then he crossed over a battalion of infantry and sent them scattering into roads and woods. Other airmen dived on to and silenced anti-aircraft guns and machine guns, and spent their intervals in upsetting any traffic they found along roads, or even small groups of the enemy crouching in shell holes. One man, when he had exhausted his ammunition, came nearer still and fired the very last missile left him. A BOLD DEED. Here is one single experience. An airmkn flying along a road far back in the enemy’s territory caught sight of an adjacent aerodrome. He flew into it at the shed end, and was, of course, fired at by a machine gun. Interrupting his first intention, he began by silencing the gun, and then went on with his work of bombing and shooting into the sheds, circling methodically round. During further experiences on his way back his left elevator was shot away, but he reached home safely. Some of the enemy’s aerodromes sent up not a single ’plane all day owing to the loss and confusion caused by such attacks.

Limbers with ammunition were exploded on roads, trains cleared at the fifty-foot level, and infantry even in trenches sent to their dug-outs. One airman, with delightful condescension, reported that the enemy’s infantry were much demoralised and left the line of march.” The result of all this was that our artillery observing ’planes worked all day without interference, and I am assured, daring as the figure sounds, that one squadron Alone sent back messages which secured 'thfe silencing of seventy-two of the enemy’s batteries. Some grumblers there were, as when the fighting airmen complained of the absence of enemies to fight, and the danger of collision owing to the quantity of our ’planes in the air.