Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1917-03-07
HAIR RAISING TALES
| OF ARMY AVIATION
Up In BaiOOn In All Kinds Of
Weather Target for Arii-
lery As Well
By william Philip simms


Feb. 4.-(By nail l)-YOu remember tn,
county fairi Remember the tremor OF
expectancy in the crowd gathered a
round the dingy old hot air balloon a,
she swelled, oh, so slowly, with tht
smoke and fumes of the barrel stav'
fret
viii you ever forget the thrill she
gave you as she lazily lurehed into the
air, dragging with her the fellow in
the darned but spangled purple tights
the parachute jump man with oiled
hair plastered down on his forehead
You secretly half hoped he would fall
! and half feared he would.
Aud then, at about fifteen hundred
\ feet, the aeronaut' S mad leap, his dead
drop of 300 to 500 feet, the slow open
! ing of the parachute and the swinging
drift to the ground; remember7
Suppose you had to leave your job
in the office, shop or on the farm, and
begin such performances tomorrow
Suppose you had to go up in balloon,
in any and all sorts of weather, to be
shot at by artillery and lunged at by
hostile aircraftl Suppose you had to
leap from burning balloons, or get
passing through the clouds7
From Clerks to Aeronauts
What if America should suddenly
find herself in war and the billboards
should say: '|Your country needs
you;" Think you could do these things
for herr British boys are doing the lit
tie trick every day. Yesterday they
were clerking in stores, working in
shops, bookkeeping in offices or 60
ing TO school. Today they are making
parachute leaps from balloons and 9TH
er more thrilling things still
Yesterday that lieutenant you find
/ yourself talking to, was a pink and
white youth at Eton preparing to go
up to Cambridge. Today he considers
| duels above the clouds with Germans
as much part of his job as yesterday
he considered calculus to be. Yesterday
he was a school kid writing essays
about flowers. Now he handles a ma
chine gun like demon as he hurtles
through the sky two miles a minute,
or nose dives after a war hardened
youth like himself whom he is trying
to kill
Here s an example. The incident oc-
cured IN the observation balloon see
ton Two youngsters, carrying out OBJ
servations over the German defenses,
suddenly got shell through their bal,
loon II began to fall, slowly at first,
then faster. They were about a mile
high.
A Real Thriller
We re hit and falling!' one of the
observers phoned down to the ground.
The hostile gun is" at X-22 D62!" A
moment later the second observer
Iphoned down the position of the hostile
battery which had punctured them. but
gave the position slightly different.
Then both boys jumped. Their para
chutes opened about the same distance
down and, not more than fifty feet
apart, they were waited earthward to-
gether
"The blthers!'' one youth called
over to the other as they dangled half
a mile above the earth. "They couldn t
do that again in million shots. -
Rummy lot of stale cheeses! -
growled the other, waving an arm in
the direction of the Germans. "Pure
accident. They couldn t hit bread
wagon if they tried. - Thus chatting
they landed in field about a mile
from their winch, and patiently trudg,
ed back.
81 m sorry to notep said the com
pany commander as they entered the
hut serving as balloon section tele-
phone central "that you two gentle
men failed to agree on the location of
the hostile battery which brought you
down. And though there was a
twinkle in his eyes, his voice was Sc
we're,
Sorry, sir! - one of the young Off
GERS replied with smart salute, "but
perhaps our error was due to the OBJ
servations being taken at different al
titudes. - Throughout the British army
one finds boyish looking officers. And
they have again and again proved
themselves up like this, when the pinch
has come.
Two other young officers while at
an altitude of about 1000 feet found
themselves caught in a windstorm be-
fore they could be hauled down. Just
before reaching earth violent gale hit
the balloon, which pulled the winch on
the ground completely over, swapping
the wire cable, The sausage wen up and
off among the clouds like bubble in
Ia whirlwind.
At n tremendous height the balloon
was struck by lightning and set on
fire, throwing one of the officers out
Of the basket, His parachute opened
but as the balloon, now falling like a
rock, had its rigging tangled up with
the lower cords Of the parachute, the
latter began descending at frightful
velocity through the storm clouds. The
officer might have cut the balloon
loose, making his own escape a certain
ty, but he would have doomed his
brother officer to certain death. So he
retrained, preferring to take the mil
lionth chance along with the other man
The velocity of the fall extinguished
the fire which had burned great hole
in the balloon and wind, getting in
through this opening, caused the fab
rie to swell out thus forming para.
chute of itself The ground was reach
ed with q thud which broke a collar.
bone or two but both young men walk
ed to the nearest dressing station
whore they reported" before receiv.
ing first aid,
clared that certain companies were