The sun., 1918-05-12
BRITISH DOWN
700 AVIATORS
Germans Lose Heavily in Air
Since Start Of Big Offensive
March 81.
HARAsS BoCHE ADVANCES
Officers With Guns Compel
Hungry Enemy Troops to
Fight Opponents.
HARASS BOCHE ADVANCES
ny PERRY ROBINSON.
Special Gable Drsrntch to THs sUs iron, tie
London Tinps

cFec'oS t0ote DcsTntca TO THp Sun from the
London Times
Copyright. 1918: all rights ,ese,ped
BRITISH ARMY HEADQUARTERS IN
FRANCE. May 10 tdelayed) A few days
Of fine weather have given our flying
men another chance and they made good
use OF It, Gfman aviators who have
been taken prfsoner lately say they now
are having great difficulty In replacing
the personnel Of their air force, having
lost some 700 pilots and observers since
the beginning OF the offensive on March
81. In one reconnaissance flight alone
they lost 1870 men.
They speak with great admiration of
the British avia tors. but mitigate their
compliments by declaring that our ma
[ chimes are better than theirs. all OF
(which is evidence that their morale is
badly shaken.
An extraordinary example OF the 81
perior morale and fighting quality of
our flying men is furnished by an incl
| dent which occurred three days ago
| when two OF our two scatter fighting
| machines fell in with patrol OF seven
| German scouts and Immediately gave
battle. While the fight was on two other
enemy patro.s OF about equal strength
hove in sight and joined in until there
| were either twenty or twenty-one Ger
| man machines against two British
Ten German Planes DOwned.
The hght continued for half an hour.
in the course OF which our tuo airplanes
actually shot down eight enemy ma
chimes and sent down others out Of con-
| troll. OF the machines certainly shot
down four broke into flames In the air
and four were seen to go straight to the
earth and crash. Our two machines
broke Off the fight only when their am
muni;on was exhausted and then OF
| twenty or so Germans originally en-
gagged only seven were left.
ON the following day these same two
machines met party OF enemy nters, OF
whom they shot down one and sent three
more down o1it OF control. making the
total bag O! the two machines for two
days nine enemy machines destroyed
and apparently an equal number driven
down In another case on May one
British machine gave battle to squad
ron OF Ave Germans. consisting OF fouf
triplanes and one scout. shot down two
trip!anes and came home safely.
In all other ways the royal air force
) has been doing splendd!y. Tne CO
operation OF airp!anes, artillery and IN
fantry has been magnificent In al! Xmas
of weather. An enormous amount o.
bombing OF enemy troops, biilets. rail
wavs. transports. batteries. Sc. has beer
done as we'll as much harassng OF troop:
and drenching Of roads and trenches
with machine gur fire while hying low
Prisoners continually tell us of the 'srea
damage DONE especially by bombing. II
the Albert. Bapaume and Bray areas
one always suspects that there ma!
, be Interior motives behind all prisoners
. statements They may be only sa!in'
things which they think will please u
in the hope of currying favor. or the!
may be purposely misleading US.
sad Tales of German Prisoners.
Making all allowances. however. tn
r extent TO which German prisoners dwel
Q upon their sufferings and their casual
o ties just now is remarkable We hea
. | OF batteries knocked about by our gun
and of gun crews kept from runntn
. away only by their officers revolver'
O We hear OF ration parties composed o
men past military age suffering SO muc
: through our artillery fire tina. they nav
O refused to come on.
, We hear OF troops being bombed ou
p Of their billets at night after being wor
+. out by the lack OF sleep and the hard
q shrs of lying out in the opcn, and q
y fresh water. brought up with great dill
y ficulty to the front line, being spo!le
= by our gas shells and made undrinkabl'
All these are in addition to tales G
: heavy losses in specific units.
!. Sitting it all there can be no dout
N that in the open country, without she'
IL ter, which they now largely occupy. IN
Germans are having a moderately nr
. happy time. OF some recent patches {
;, prisoners about 40 per cent, must haN
belonged to the 10 class. while cor
v siderable proportion were only IS or
; years old.