Norwich bulletin., 1917-02-02

and supply columns, and otherwise carrying on" in the sky in a manner wholly bewildering to the onlooker but typ1fying in supreme degree the in dispensable part aviation is playing in this war.
 With a candor often uncommon in times of strife. the British commu- niQue may end from day to day with the simple statement that one or two or three or four tof our machines have not returned" This means they have either been hit and forced to land in the enemy lines. or have been shot down to a fate more certain. It is no child's play to circle above a German battery observing for half an hour or more. tortured by exploding shells and black shrapnel puffbaIls coming nearer and nearer like the ex- tending tips of some hand of death. But they are little more than children these mere boys who are bringing the lustre of everlasting fame to the scarce eighteen. It is rare to find a flying man over twenty-five.
 In the aggregate however, the losses in the flying corps are as nothing work the wings accomplish. Without them the big guns would have no far seeing eyes to correct their shells. Without them and the hundreds of photographs they daily take the map makers could not trace each detail of the trench positions. Without them the general staff could not accurately know just what is going on by day and night behind the enemy lines. Without them modern war would lose its most fascinating phase.
 The good flying" of a single day on the British front alone may represent day of hundred fights, a day of four score aeroplaneS in wing-to wing combat-a day of a thousand personal incidents and deeds of daring in the once strange strata of high thin air.
 T% 4rra4 A411 f@, <.f Ial.rry Lieutenant A in a fast-hying scout machine, encountered a squadron of twelfe German Hollands. The odds were one-sided enough, but the young BrltiSher decided to take the chance He climbed swiftly and surely until he got far above and to the rear of the hostile craft. Evidently the Ger mans were intent upon some errand which they proposed to carry out in force, for they paid no heed to the khali-clad airman until he deliberate ly dived into them. firing as he came. This threw the twelve Germans into a panic and their formation was entire ly broken up. Meantime Lieut.. A got beneath the nearest machine and fired an entire drum of cartridges in- to it at fifteen yards. The hostile ma chine collapsed and crashed" That is a supreme word in the lexicon of the flying corps. A machine may fall, or dive. but until it is actually seen to crash" it is not counted as an enemy casualty.
 After seeing his particular enemy crash" Lieut. A drew off to think things over. He was somewhat a. mazed to see still more hostile ma chimes coming up in formation. But he dashed at the leader of the new corners and sent him in a spiral nose dive to a crash" This led to still more complications and the intrepid little pilot soon found himself engaged with three machines. His fight with these was indecisive-
 For" says the official record, "hav- ing expended all his ammunition. Lieut. A. set for for home"
 A few days later, it is related, he took a running dive into a formation of twenty hostile machines with all the self assurance an eagle might have in the midst of a flock of spar rows. Before he was through he had sent three adversaries crashing"
 This time," says the record. "lae re- turned to one of our aerodomes for more ammunition and returned to the scene of battle where he engaged and dispersed such enemy machines as remained in the vicinity. One was seen to crash upon a housetop."
 This same little Lieutenant A. seems to persist in the records of the service. One day he was crossing the enemy lines at n 1.5e0 feet when he found