The Cordova daily times., 1917-05-29
SOMERSA u I OF AV|ATORS IN L ~ HEAVENS
(By United Press)

called the chap who did stunts with his machine before this war began The aerial acrobat paradoxically was looked down upon. Today the whole game has changed, and the more cir GUS stunts a pilot can do the safer he is in the air. Unless a man can loop the loop, fly upside down, bump the bumps and do a general topsy- turvy, wine-jelly wobble while never missing a note with his machine gun his life is apt to be a short and slight ly agitated one.
 With the advent of long, bright sum mer days, battle planes march across the sky, patrol the clouds and do post duty there in just the same way as soldiers do on the ground There are machines corresponding to infantry, which go in droves and attack and re pei attacks. Others are like cavalry, and do scouting Still more are com parable to the artillery. Some are like tanks, some like armored motor cars, and some do sniping among the creamy thunderclouds. But the pilot of each machine must know how to fly as human beings never flew before, otherwise the cracker box on which he sits at mealtime is sure to play the role of vacant chair at some not very distant date.
 From a gun pit near Monchy-le- Brenn have just witnessed some of the most terrific fighting of the war. Aside from the savage attacks and counter attacks by infantry throughout this region and an artillery activity thus far unsurpassed anywhere, the battle was aust as tough in the air as on the earth.
 A fleet of eighteen wide-winged bombers swept across the line high up. accompanied by light fighters darting about like hawks keeping hostile ma chimes at distance. Patrols guarded the British side of the line, sailing up and down, swerving and turning ready for attack or defense, while air sentinels kept watch about the obser- vation balloons lest out of the cloud puffs should dart destroyer-type Ger man plane and put the sausage down. Now and then, as Prussian airmen at tempted to force their way over to the English side to give their artillery the range on batteries and troops, fierce fighting developed in which ma chimes were brought down crashing.
 Between Monchy and Guemapoe the German infantry suddenly appeared in the open, coming from behind Vert Wood, southeast of Monchy, and the enemy artillery increased their she'll fire on this hilltop town until all was buried under while, yellow and black smoke. Shrapnel filled the air with their twin puffs of smoke, one white puff and one black, and lest the Brit ish should throw in their reserves, a barrage of light and heavy explosives rained down on the slopes to the west
 Here British battle planes got in would have set a grandstand wild with mixed awe and delight. One pilot swooped down almost perpen- dicularly as though about to crash into the shattered roof tops of smoking. seething Monehy, but just as he seem ed about to touch, he careened on the tip of one wing, turned at sicken- ing speed to the right and disappeared into the smoke of battle, few yards at most over the heads of the madly attacking Germans. For a few sec onds his sudden appearance and the deadly work of his machine gun must have caused something akin to panic in the enemy ranks, then he shot up and away again at 130 miles an hour Round and round he turned, sweeping until completely lost to view. He looped, twisted, wobbled and dived SC that only a chance shot might touch him. It looked as if he had gone mad , yss.. ys.- as2y only this seeming madness made his escape from death possible. But for his aerial acrobatics he and his machine would have been riddled witt bullets. AS it was he came out sue cessful and unharmed. The Germans were hurled back, smashed and demor alized and part of the glory of de feating them was his.
 fought out in the clouds above th' fields west of Wancourt, southwest o Monchy. Further to the north anoJhe German was hit at 15000 feet ant down he fluttered life a dead leaf, fol lowed by the British aviator who hat downed him. This he done to mak sure the fall was real, not faked.
 The most thrilling of all was tn duel above the gun pit where I sa and looked on. It was between tw mere boys. For twenty minutes thes two fought for position, spared at a altitude of nearly three miles, neithe being able to bring his machine gu to bear on the other. They loopet nose-dived, slide-slipped and di stunts, one after another, but eac
 held his own. Finally the Germa