The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-05-11
OVER ADR|ANOPLE
IN AN AEROPL
English Airman's Expert
ence in Balkan War
HIGH EFFICIENCY
Bulgarian Air Corps Does Good
Work-Pupils of French Schools.
Bomb Dropping Sortie Seen
From Above
EFFICIENCY

MuStapha Pasha q had been given my
aeroplane on the Bulgarian side of the
frontier and few it to the base there) the
Turks had already suffered three defeats
lat Sellolu, at Petra Erkiklar and OF
Kirk Kilisse. The investment of Adria-
nople was complete. The Bulgarian air
corps was assembled at Mustapha in an
aerodrome near the river a little way from
the town. It's equipment, considering the
rapidity with which 1t had been got to-
gether, was very good ana thorough.
There were In all IS machines of various
types and Il pilots of various nationali-
ties
A certain number of Bulgarians had al
ready got their brevets at various French
aviation schools; amongst them Lieuten-
ant Petroff, who may be termed the pio-
neer of, Bulgarian aviation That the
organization was complete in every. way
is proved by the fact that from start to
finish we never lacked a single spare part
or single drop of petrol. Flying was con-
tinual-I do not want the reader to think
that the flights l describe were the only
ones which took place or that l was the
only actor in these operations. Petrofg,
Sabelli Date instructor in the Haumot
school at Brooklands). two Russian avia-
tors and several Bulgarians all did SPLEEN
did work, and most of them We're undes
fire on more than one occasion.
From start to finish we had wonderfully
good fortune, and our only casualty from
the opening of hostilities up to the armis-
tice was the death of Lieutenant To-
braclStchieff, who was burned to death by
an escape of petrol after a fall on the
aerodrome. This occurred two days be-
fore our arrival.
/ made my first attempt to fly over
Adrianople on the day after our arrival in
a 100 horsepower Albatross bplane, which
had been allotted me, and which | used
throughout the campaign. As my pas
senger Cor observer) ] had NJ. Poprissteff
a typical Bulgarian officer and a capital
fellow Our partnership was to last until
after the armistice and we became tre-
mendous friends. ! don't know any ex-
perience like that of flying over a hostile
position and wondering when the enemy
are going to have a shot al you, to ce-
ment the feeling of comradeship between
man and man.
The way in which we got an order to
go was peculiar In the morning, with
the new biplane, / had done trial flight
regarding which, by the way, the officers
sent to see us do our tests showed the
greatest enthusiasm and greeted me with
applause which was quite embarrassing
in its cordiality. After lunch Colonel
Nasilieff came round and asked me if l
would care 10 try flight over and round
Adrianople. ! found afterWard that this
was the polite formula for delivering an
order. In fact. we We're scarcely ever
commanded to do this or that, but only
mildly asked If we should like to make
such and such an attempt. None of us,
however, misunderstood the implication.
By $3.50 we were off. The wind was still
blowing, but | don't think it was any
colder than 1t would have been in Eng
land at the same season.
First Trip About Adrianople
Before we left our improvsed aero
drome on the west of NIustapha we
climbed to about 2ooO feet. Our course
lay southeast along the River Martha
so by the city of Adrrinople, across a cor
ner of the town, then over the main road
to the very important nest of fortresses
on the northeast, and so in loop home
1t wasn't very eventful journey. There
was a good deal of mist and this pre-
vented satisfactory observation work. So
thick wasn't that l was practically over
Adrianople station before / was aware
that I'D struck the town at all and on
this occasion l got very little view of
2 tae place. Once the fog cleared enough
TO give me q glimpse of the landmark I
have mentioned-the Mosque of Selim-
and as we came round on the north il
swayed away from below u.s. and we
could distinguish the puffs of smoke from
the cannon in the field. On the whole
was grateful for that mist, for l took
the place al ridiculous altitude little
over 2O00 feet, and had it been anything
like clear weather we must have offered
very fair mark to the enemy; not in
deed. that | think an aeropane can ever
offer a really good mark; it moves too
rapidly and its distance is too difficult to
Judge for that.
Still, in Future l was careful to make
myself as difficult a mark as possible
l do not think however, that we
were fired on at all during this Journey
though, of course, a rifle bullet might
have come very near, and so long as it
missed the planes we should not have
noticed it. Though L crossed the place
twice afterward, once dropping bombs
/ never did get a shot TO my knowledge
till in dense fog when crossing on my
way to Chorlu | was flred al several
times. This time the atmosphere was so
dense that we couldn't see beyond the
nose of the machine My compass, which
had been placed too near the magnetic in
the self-starter on my engine was out of
order, and L was compelled to fly fairly
low in the hope Of picking up a lead"
Suddenly, sharp and distinct above the
noise of the engine heard below a series
of raps-I say traps because at the
moment | was reminded of somebody ran
ping violently with their knuckles on a
wooden table.
I guessed it's meaning Immediately: that
sound was shrapnel exploding, and
started climbing at once; but three or four
times more we caught that persuasive
crack before we rose out of hearing. II
was certainly a queer sensation, this
uueerer because of our isolation up there
in the fog with nothing visible to our
selves save the machine and the rolling
clouds of vapor above, below and OF
every side of us. We had heard a repor
that the garrison possessed some Krupl
anti-aeroplane guns and the shells MAY
have been fired from these, or may hav,
been .'sporting shots from some Other
piece of artillery trained TO as high {
trajectory as possible.
Bomb Dropping
Quite why they let us pass over un
noticed on several occasions when W.
must have presented comparatively
good mark and then elected to fire at u,
when we could only have been audible
| am at a loss TO conjecture. Possibly
we were flying lower than we thought
possbly the noise of our engine WAS con
veyed downward by the fog and they
fbou.ht we We're nearer than we were
ANYHOW | know both Poplzrissteff ant
myself were very reassured when we hat
climbed to some 5000 feet and heard onl.
the purr of our engine.
Most of us took our turn at bomb drop
ming. | did so both at Adrianople anC
f,hata1ia. The first of my experiences
was a representative one. The daA