The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-12-15
IN
 AIRPLANE FLYING 4,OOO FEET IN AIR

Behind British Lines in France, Dec. Histories of daring escapades of British aviators, exciting aerial combats from which the air-fighters escaped alive seemingly only by mira cle and of brilliantly executed raids upon German aerodromes and troops behind the German lines are narrated in the reports of the Royal Flying Corps covering the activities of about one week. Hair-raising incidents of fierce conflicts above the clouds or low over the German communication lines are described in these succinct re- ports without bombast, as though these narrow escapes from death are commonplace and all in the days work of the atr-hghter.
 For example, there was the case of a British aviation officer who, when nearly mile above the earth, was at- tackled by two enemy aircraft. He shot down one of them out of control but was himself wounded and faint ed while still high in the air. Re- covering consciousness he found his machine upside down at an elevation of 4,000 feet with one enemy aircraft still firing at him. The Britisher, however, managed after a struggle, to right his machine and land safely.
 In a somewhat similar instance, a German scout attacked British air plane carrying a pilot and observer. One of the Germans bullets passed through the gasoline tank of the Brit ish airplane and seriously wounded the pilot The British observer, however, pumped full double drum of bullets at the enemy scout at very close quarters and the German went to the ground with a crash.
 Meanwhile the British pilot had tainted and fallen against the steer ing stick in such a fashion as to throw the airplane into a spin. The British observer climbed over the side and forward along the plane to the pilots cockpit, lifted the pilot to his seat and, still standing on the wing of the plane released the steering gear, brought the machine out of the spin and safely to the ground.
 Two British officers were returning from an expedition over the enemy S lines to locate hostile batteries when their machine was hit by anti-aircraft fire and the engine damaged. Vel blaming, the machine landed 800 yards from the British lines, the air plane turned over and the ayiators were hurled out on the German side under heavy fire from rifles and ma i chine-guns, the aviators dived into the canal only to find it full of barbed | wire but managed to reach the Brit /! ish lines in safety.
 | Many instances illustrating the reck- 1 less daring of the British aviators sent over the German lines to obtain | information, destroy aerodromes and harry the German reserves are con- | tained in the official narratives. One | pilot who crossed the lines at Ypres threw off two attacking machines bombed the Heule aerodrome near Lille and was fired upon by two ma chine-guns. He dfved at one o1 them, firing with both guns of the British airplane, drove the Germans from their guns, fired upon the aero drome again, attacked and scattered | a column of 200 German 1nfantrymeT on the road. A German two-seatel airplane was. circling 500 feet above him for an attack 'T zoomed up un. der it's tail and fired into it," writes the British aviator. "It crashed dowr onto the railway"
 Another British pilot had fire g hundred rounds on German troops or l the march when he was interrupted by two enemy airp1anes. He attacked them and drove both down and ther finished the job of driving the Ger man infantry into trenches and shell. 1 holes.
 Flying at the height of 200 feet a British aviator engaged in revolver duel with two German officers in g motor and while doing so ran into some lines of telegraph wires but for. 1 tunately his machine cut them. A few minutes later he attacked German in. fantry which escaped his gun only by diving into a pond.
 HOLLY-XMAS TREES
 WREATHS