The Benson signal., 1918-07-13

Washington, D. C.-The story of the
first victory over German airplane by
an American aviator is told by the
American victor himself, Lieut. Alan
F. Winslow, Signal Reserve corps OF
Chicago, in notes from his diary,
which were made public by the war
department. Written with no thought
Of publication, and merely for the pur-
pose of preserving his own impress
siOns, Lieutenant Winslow neverthe-
less has produced document which
the war department regards as or
great historical value and which i'm
presses the reader by it's descriptive
power. Here is his story:
ION Sunday morning, April IA, |
was 'on alert from 6 a. m. till 10
q. M, that is, l, with Lieut.. Douglas
Campbell of Harvard and California
(since designated as the first American
.ace) was on emergency call duty. We
were sitting in the little alert tent
playing cards, waiting for call. Our
machines were outside, ready at mo-
ment's notice. I was patrol leader.
At :45 was called to the phone, told
by the information officer, who Is in
direct touch with all batteries and OBJ
servation posts, that two German air
planes were about 1000 meters above
the city, which is only mile or. so
from here. We were told they were
going east. We were rushed down to
our machines in side cars, and in an
other minute were off in the air.
~ Was Furious"
"Doug started ahead of me, as l was
tu meet him above certain point at
500 meters and then take the lead. I
gave him about 45 seconds start, and
then left myself, climbing steeply in a
left-hand spiral in order to save time.
I had not made a complete half turn
and was at about 25O meters when
straight above and ahead of me in the
mist of the early morning, and not
more than 100 yards away, l saw a
plane coming toward me with huge
black crosses on it's wings and tail.
II was so furious to see German
directly over our aviation field that |
swore out loud and violently opened
fire. At the same time, to avoid my
bullets, he slipped into a left-hand re-
versement and came down, firing on
me. I climbed, however, in a right
hand spiral and slipped off, coming
down directly behind him and on his
tail. Again l violently opened fire. l
L,1 III O6x ton i0h
was due to the greater speed and ma
neuverability of our wonderful ma
chimes 1 fired 20 to 80 rounds at him
and could see my tracers entering his
machine.
Each "Got" His Man.
"Then, in another moment, his plane
went straight down in an uncontrolled
nose dive; had put his engine out of
commission. 1 followed in a straight
dive, firing all the way. AT about 900
feet above the ground he tried to re-
gain control of his machine, but could
nOt, and he crashed to earth. l darted
down near him, made sharp turn by
the wreck, to make sure he was out of
swOOp down over him, and climbed up
again to see if Doug needed any help
with the other Boche, for l had
caught glimpse Of their combat out
of the corner of my eye.
II rose to about 300 feet again to
see Doug on the trail of his Boche.
His tracer bullets were passing
throughout the enemy plane.
climbed little higher and was diving
down on this second German and
about to fire when saw the German
plane go up in flames and crash to
earth. Doug had sent his German
plane down one minute after l had
shot down mine.
Mind YOU, the fight took place only