The Celina Democrat. (Celina, O. [Ohio]) 1895-1921, 1918-11-22
THRILLING RAID
OVER HUN TOWN
Young American Aviator Tells Of
Drive Over the Ger
man Lines.
SHELLS BURST ALL AROUND
Squadron Proceeds MethodIeaIIy With
Its Work Under Constant Fire Of
Anti-AIrcraft Guns-All Re.
turn to Base.

LOndOn.-Amerlcan bombing squad
rons are now bombing the Rhine val
ley along with the British. The Yank
pilots and observers, like their breth-
rem of the royal air force, enter into
this sport" with the same spirit that
has made them famous on the baseball
diamond or football gridirOn of their
own American colleges.
A young American aviator has just
told of trip over the German lines
and back behind into German territory.
The formation in which the American
airmen flew consisted of II big bomb
ing machines, each of which carried
1000 pounds of high explosives, three
machine guns and three men. This
was the boys story:
'After l had tried the guns on my
machine, checked the bombs, made
sure everything was ship-shape, and
put couple of little bombs into
small bag beside me, started my en-
gfne. The big motors growled away,
waiting for the starting flash. Soon
the signal came and we were off.
High Altitude Reached.
"For twenty minutes we climbed, un-
til the earth was just black blot. An
other twenty-five minutes and we were
over tie trenches, with the searchers
cropping about in the mists below us.
The big guns crashed away cont:nu-
Ously, and we could see the explosions
from where we scared high above
them. No sooner had we crossed the
lines than the Germans started firing
at us with their anti-aircraft guns.
Once German searchlight got right
on lis with its beam of light. We fired
a couple of rounds of machine-gun
fire at the Germans who were manning
the searchlight, and 1t went out.
"Far below us we could see the
lights of a locomotive. Finally we
reached our objective. According to
plan, we thrOttled our motors and
glided toward the earth to get nearer
our target. It seemed curiously quiet.
Then suddenly the earth seemed to
open below us. Seventeen searchlights
were turned on us by the Germans,
and their shafts of light swept all
about us. The anti-aircraft guns
made a wall ahead of us. The high |
explosive shells burst on every side
Of us, and the green-fire balls swayed
md spiraled as they tried to set US on
0nn fpnV alnf md
straight on, with never a waver or
turn. There were so many crashes
that thought more than once that we
were hit. We kept straight on.
Amid Binding Rays.
Suddenly one of the German
'eaIchlights got US and the rest of the
seventeen threw around us with sud-
Ienness that made their concentra-
ion feel like a blow. We fired our
machine guns until the tips of the
weapons got red and the glow be-
yan to creep up the barrels. The
whole seventeen beams were on us, al
hOugh we plunged and side-slipped
bout in desperate way. We let go
he bombs when we were right over
he mark. The antiaircraft shells
vere getting even closer than ever
md the machine was hit time and
gain, though not in vital spot. Why
ve were not literally blown out Of
he air dc not know. After we were
veil over the mark and had dropped
II our bombs we discovered one $50
'Ound bomb which had caught fast
q the rack and failed to drop when
Consequently we swung
ack on second run and when we
'ere over the place which we had
Ombed we let go the last bomb and
cored direct hit far below.
"We went home at a high speed.
Ee crossed our own trench lines at
bout 5000 feet up, saw some famil-
lr landmarks, headed for our own
irdrOme, fired our signal and got
ne answer. A few minutes later we
ad landed. A glance over the ma
hine saw two big tears in the side
the fuselage and many holes in
he wings.
"But we had done a splendid bit of
Ombing, and such damage as our ma
hine had suffered was by no means
ifficult to repair"