The Alaska daily empire., 1917-12-27
AN AVIATOR
 TELLS ABOUT
 EXPERIENCES Letter Received in Juneau from Lieut.. PIayford
 HaIes of British
 Service. HE DROPPED HIS HUN Believes That He Secured More Than One Victim, but Lacks Official Confirmation.
HE DROPPED HIS HUN

Writing to Mrs William Pallister, of Juneau, her brother, Lieutenant Playford Hales, member of the Brit ish Aviation Service tells many in tere3ting facts of Life in the avia- tion branch at the front Part Of the letter is reprinted below.
 My last letter to you was written from F'reiston and while there I was busy with aerial gunnery, dummy and live-bomb dropping and machine gun work on the ground Practice with machine gun consisted in shoot ing at hot air balloons, targets, aero planes in motion on targets, time firing and clearing of all kinds and types of jams. This course was quite good and very interesting
 By some lucky chance I wash sel- ected to go to East Fortune. This place is up in Scotland, twenty miles out of Edinburgh, and five miles from North Berwick, the famous golfing place of Scotland On the station we had airships and seven different types of airplanes. The airplanes were in splendid condition md beautifully kept, and what was very important 10 me was the fact that they varied from fairly decent two-seaters to single scatter fighting scouts As you know all the chaser scouts are single seaters with fixed guns and aiming is accomplished by pointing the nose of your bus On he desired target. By a system of sychronizing gear the bullets are propeller turns, but do not hit the propeller except under exceptional cases and then only a stray shot"
 Here follows several paragraphs of social gossip. Continuing the letter said: ''It was funny the night they took me down to the Duke of Roxboroughs It was fun ny because they all talked the head off me just to hear the Canadian accent and slang But Pm proud of the Canadians in every shape and form and out here in France he has the name and the French people are full out for us.
 From East Fortune they moved mo to Dover and I spent two weeks there in charge of a scout flight From Dover came across the creek and landed in dear old France. At Dover I had great time and sampled some of the air raids-one of our fellows brought down a Hun in the daylight raid.
 "Over here the war takes on a more serious aspect because you blow right into it head first, but the French people carry on just the same as if there was no war on. They are wonderful.
 Out here on the western front the War seems safe enough for us and good margin to spare. On the other two fronts, Italy and Rus sia, things are not so rosy, but that is only antural in a war like this Evidently the war is billed to last good long time yet and the things seem to be planned that way.
 "I have met several American of ficers out here and I am pleased to say that they realize how far be- hind the times an ordinary peace times country is in regards to war It has taken England and France three years to attain their present state and possibly the States can duplicate their efforts in little over year by studying their mistakes and shortcomings.
 But after all the individual fight CT and his stamnia play a very i'm portant part in the final outcome and the British Tommy will take lot of beating and then isn't i beaten, and on top of it all he is i the happiest man alive. The British Tommy is a marvellous fellow and l admire every inch of him
 The artillery game out here is marvellous and the straffing ma | chimes are pretty hot sometimes ! and the shooting is remarkably good. A barrage looks like rain falling in ponds and puddles and after it is | over poor old Mother Earth is an aw- ful looking mass of ruin and desola- | ton.
 From what I have seen. heard, | read, and experienced of the Amer ican machines I am afraid that their | airplanes are yet quite behind our busses as regards fighters. If the report is true that they are building