Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1918-07-05
A scont. sometimes called a fighting

0AOALn hg9 ~
noitering to do. His duty is just to
fight, or, as the order was given to me,
"You are expected to pick fights and
not wait until they come to your
When bomb. troopers go out over
the lines in the daytime "a scout squad
ron usually conveys them. The bomb
troopers fly at about twelve thousand
feet, and scouts a thousand feet or so
above them.
If at any time they should be at
tackled, it is the duty of the scouts to
dive down and carry on the fight, the
orders of the bomb troopers being to
20 on dropping bombs and not to fight
unless they have to. There Is seldom
q time that machines go out over the
lines on this work in the daytime that
they are not attacked at some time or
other, and so the scouts usually have
plenty of work to do. In addition to
these attacks, however, the squadron
is invariably under constant lombard
ment from the ground, but that doesn't
worry US very much, as we know pref
ty well how to avoid being hit from
that quarter.
On my first flight, after Joining the
squadron, 1 was taken out over the
lines to get a look at things, map out
my location In case / was ever lost,
locate the forests, lakes and other
landmarks and get the general lay OF
the land.
One thing that was impressed upon
me very emphatically was the location
Of the hospitals, so that In case l was
ever wounded and had the strength to
pick my landing 1 could land as near
as possible to a hospital. All these
things a new pilot goes through dur
ing the first two or three days after
joining a squadron.
Our regular routine was two flights
q day, each of two hours duration.
After doing our regular patrol it was
our privilege to go off on our own hook
If we wished. before going back to
the squadron.
/ soon found out that my squadron
was some hot squadron, u flyers be-
ing almost always assigned to special
duty work, such as shooting up
trenches at a height of fifty feet from
the ground.
l received my baptism into this kind
of work the third time l went out over
the lines, and / would recommend it
to anyone who is laundering for excite
ment. You are not only apt to be at
tackled by hostile aircraft from above,
but you are swept by machine-gun fire
from below. / have seen some of our
machines come back from this work
sometimes so riddled with bullets that
l wondered how they ever held to-
gether. Before we started out on one
of these Jobs, we were mighty careful
to see that our motors were in perfect
condition, because they told us the
"war bread was bad in Germany"
One morning, shortly after 1 Joined
the squadron, three of US started over
the line of our W accord. We soon
observed four enemy machines, two
seaters. coming toward us. This type
of machine ~ used
artillery work and bomb Nnu
we knew they were on mischief bent.
Each machine had a machine gun in
lIOult WOIhCQ ny tAC PAAOt, OAN
server also had a gun with which he
could spray all around.
When we first noticed the Huns, our
machines were about six miles back
of the German lines and we were lying
high up in the sky, keeping the sun
behind us, so that the enemy could not
see us.
We picked out three Of the machines
and dove down on them. l went right
by the man I picked for myself and
his observer in the rear seat kept
pumping at me to beat the band. Not
n of my shots took effect as l went
right down under him, but l turned
and gave him another burst of bullets,
and down he went in a spinning nose
dive, one of his wings going one way
and one another. AS I saw him crash
to the ground l knew that I had got my
first hostile aircraft. One of my com
rades was equally successful, but the
other two German machines got away.
We chased them back until things got
too hot for us by reason of the appear
ance of other German machines, ana
then we called it a day.
This experience whetted my appetite
| for more of the same kind, and l did
| not have long to wait.
1t may be well to explain here just
what a spinning o. bend is. A few
years ago the spinning nose dive was
considered one of the most dangerous
things a pilot could attempt, and
many men were killed getting into this
spin and not knowing how to come
out of it. In fact, lots of pilots
thought that when once you got into
a spinning nose dive there was no
way of coming out of it. 1t is now
used, however, in actual flying.
The machines that are used IN
Fronca arc controlled in two ways,