The Canon City record with which is consolidated the Canon City cannon., 1918-08-15

rr>'~fN w w. Iii~ dutF Is Ju>l "
night, or, as the order was given to me,
~fou are expected to pick fights and
NOT wait until they come to you.'
When bomb droppers go out over
/ the lines in The Daytime scout squad
ron usually conveys them. The bomb
dropprrs fly at about twelve thousand
feet, and scouts Il thousand feet or so
/ above them.
II at any time they should be at
tackled, IL is the duty Of the scouts to
/ dive down and carry on the fight. the
orders Of the bomb droppers being TO
! go o;i dropping bombs and not 10 fight
unless they have TO. There is seldom
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 10 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 pret-
I fy well how to avoid being hit from
that quarter.
On my first flight. after joining the
squadron, / was taken out over the
lines 10 get look at things, map out
J my location In case / was ever lost,
I 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 was
ever wounded and had the strength to
rtCfy my Iap I Iap
rs 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
day. each of two hours duration.
After doing our regular patrol. it was
our privilege TO go of on our own hook
81 we wished, before going back TO
the squadron
i soon found out that my squadron
was some hot squadron. our flyers be-
Ing almost always assigned to special
, duty work, such as shooting up
trenches at height of fifty feet from
the ground.
received my baptism into this kind
{ of work the third time went out over
atft bhfr- anu Modiu II
I TO anyone who is hankering 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
I from below. / have seen some of our
machines come back from this work
sometimes so riddled with bullets that
i wondered how they ever held to-
gether. Before We started out on one
Of these jobs, we were mighty careful
I to see that our motors were in perfect
condition. because they told us the
war bread was bad in Germany"
One morning. shortly after Joined
I the squadron. three of us started over
the line of our own accord. We soon
observed four enemy machines, two
seaiers, coming toward us. This type
OF machine is used by the Huns for
artillery work and bomb dropping. and
we knew they were on mischief bent
Each machine had a machine gun in
front, worked by the pilot. and the OBJ
server also had 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. / went right
by the man l picked for myself and
his observer In the rear seat kept
pumping at me TO beat the band. Not
one of my shots took effect as ! went
right down under him. but 1 turned
and gave him another burst of bullets,
aud down he went in a spinning nose
dive. one of his wings going one way
and one another. As / saw him crash
TO the ground knew that 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, and
then we called 1t day.
This experience whetted my appetite
for more of the same kind. and l did
not have long to wait.
II may be well TO explain here just
what spinning nose bend is. A few
years ago the spinning nose dive was
considered one OF the most dangerous
things pilot could attempt. and
many men were killed getting into this
spin and not knowing how to come
out of IL. In fact, lots Of pilots
thought that when once you got into
spinning nose dive there was no
way of coming out of 1t. II is now
used. however in actual flying.
The machines that are used In
France are controlled in two ways.