The weekly soliphone., 1917-03-08
SIMMS CONCLUDES
 BALLOON STORIES
Last of Series of Interesting Tales Of Personal Experiences Told
 By Reporter.
(By William Philip Sin1ms, United
 Press Staff Correspondent

F1elu, rep. f.-tDy Mdll - Ou lt- member the county fair? Remem Der the tremor of expectancy in the crowd gathered around the dingy old hot-air balloon as she sweled, oh, so slowly, with the smoke and fumes of the barrel stave fire?
 Will you ever forget the thrill she gave you as she lazily lurched 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.
 dred feet, the aeronaut's mad leap, his dead drop of 300 or 300 feet, the slow opening of the parachute and the swinging drift to the ground; remember?
 Suppose you had to aeave your job in the office, shop or or on the farm and begin such perform ances tomorrow? Suppose you had to go up in a balloon, in any and all sorts of weather, to be shot at by artillery and lunged at by hos tile aircraft? Suppose you had to lepa from burning balloons, or get tossed out of the basket of one while passing through the clouds?
 What if America should suddenly find herself in a war and the bill- boards should say: Your Country Needs You" think you could do these things for her? British boys are doing the little trick every day. Yesterday they were clerking in stores, working in shops, bookkeep- ing in offices or going to school. Today they are making parachute leaps from balloons mad other 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 fighting duels above the clouds with Germans as much a lpart of his job as yesterday he con- | sidered calculus to be. Yesterday he was a school kid writing essays about flowers Now he handles a machine gun like demon as he hurtles through the sky two miles minute, or nose dives after war hardened youth like himself whom he is trying to kill
 Here's ma example. The incident occurred in the observation bal loon section. Two youngsters, car rying out observations over the Ger man defenses, suddenly got shell through their balloon. It began to falswol,l ao etoai aOishrdlushrdluo fall, slowly at first, then faster. They were about a mile high.
 Were 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 phoned down the position of the hostile battery which i had punctured them, but gave the position slightly different.
 Then both boys jumped. Their parchutes opened about the same distance down and, not more than fifty feet apart, they were waited earthward together.
 "The blighters!" one youth call ed over to the other as they GangleG half 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 accidentl They couldn't hit bread wagon if they tried" Thus chatting they landed in a field about mile from their winch, and patiently trudged back.
 I'm sorry to note," said the commander as they entered the hut Iserving as balloon section telephone |central, that you two gentlemen failed to agree on the location o1 the hostile battery which brought you down. And though there was "a twinkle in his eyes, his voice was Isevere.
 Sorry, sir," one of the young Iofficers replied with smart sa- lute, but perhaps our error was due to the observations being taker lat different attitudes" Through lout the British army one finds boy fish h-looking officers. And they have lIagain and again proved themselves lup like this, when the pinch ha: leone.
 Two other young officers whil' lat an altitude of about 4,000 fec found themselves caught in a wind tstorm before they could be hauled down. Just before reaching eartf ], la violent gale hit the balloon, whicf pulled the winch on the grount completely over, snapping the wire cable The sausage" went up ant