The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-09-12
SOME FRESH STORIES OF
 EUROPES GREAT WAR


 destroyer there Is left but little doubt of who will have to go. Give our men only machines enough and they will do their work, and when at last this huge German host turns homeward 1t must be a blind host. and it must be the allies who will soar in the heavens and see.
 It must be the allies whose bombs will smash bridges, cucumber railroaos with shattered trains and choke roads with wreckage of transport.
 This task we are asking of our aviators is one of the most dazzling and terrible that men ever have faced. The single combats that distinguished the age or chivalry, when champion rode aSainst champion, in front of closing hosts, were but tame exhibitions before the starry deeds these men will have to do
 Up they will go, to dash themselves into zeppelins. to slash the Zeppelin envelope with trailing knives, to outtiy the hos tile aeroplane and pick off the pilots in duel in the giddy void within the sight of armies.
 So at least it seems to me, such fighting must be done Since we have available no aeroplanes in which one man may free his hands to fire guns, at least two men must go up together. Each will be an aviator, but one man must be the pilot and the other man control the gun. Their mark must be the enemy's pilot and his wheel.
 Must Act in Concert
 It may be that presently we shall find that two or three aehoplanes, act ing in concert. may be able to maneuver more easily to a position Of advantage but, essentially. the struggle will be for the upper hand and for the first shot Essentially it will be dueling alright be- tween champions.
 t1.. l. .x.1,.x .tt home is to send out men to fly and to see there is nothing left undone that will help to win and hold the control of the air. There will be no lack of men to undertake this peculiar and wonderful service. I know our stuff But 1t is iIn- peratlve they should have the best ma chines-and an unstinted supply of ma chines-the service of most skilful mechanics and have their air craft equipped with the most perfect weapons. and trained with the utmost skill e want no generous blundering suicides. Every man who goes up will go up to an even chance Of death. It Is imperative that no lives be wasted, that every death should be death in battle, and that no accidents, no failure Of wing or engine, should add to the price we must pay now for negligence of the past.
 And here is something more. We owe these men honor. Our common men are brave, but these men who will fly in the air will be something more than common men. They will be the aristocrats of the army. No man will fly the worse for the knowledge that the world will re- gard him as such.
 Whatever else is kept from us, one thing must be kept in the front. and that Is the story of every encounter of our men in the air. and particularly the names of the men who will du the things.
 There already has been printed the story of a German aviator shot dead by an Englshman In midair. It was a strangely impressive story, for it told that the German marchine volplaned to the ground and landed undamaged, steered by the grip of the dead man.
 Would Knight Aviators
 Is that true story, and. if so who was the Englishman? Nothing can be too good for such man.
 I want to make a proposal for these men who, more than any others, are destined to save Europe from Germany. Make for them an order of lSnighthood.
 Every aviator who goes up to fight do not mean to reconnoitre, but to fight--wil fight all the more gladly with two kindred alternatives in his mind-a prompt knighthood or the prompt pay ol SeHefous iile lhsuIaHce pOllcy 10 ms people.
 Every man who goes up and destroys either aeroplane or Zeppelin in the air should, I hold, have xnighthood if he gets down alive. I will venture to say we shall create thereby the most honor- able and enviable order the world ever has seen. know this will seen a startling suggestion to those who have forgotten what knights once were, and who will think at once of party helpers and pro- vinclal mayors.
 l know this is proposing to make knights out of poor men. men without means and only the training of ordinary mechanics. But is not the day of putoc- racy nearly at an end, and is it not time when honors may again become honorable and the reputation of the coun- try, long tarnished by the venal prosti- tuition of It's titles and distinctions to the base expedients of peace, be little cleaned by the ennoblement of brave men?
 One talks and reads of the past heroic age, and of how the world has degener- ated. But, indeed, this is the heroic age suddenly come again. No legendary feats of the past, no battles with dragons or monstrous beasts, no quest or feat that man has hitherto attempted, can com pare with this adventure--this urgently necessary adventure-in terror. danger and splendor.
 army and. of the navy, young men of no particular magniflcence of gesture or appearance, is far in excess. alas! of the machines we have at present available for their use.
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