New Britain herald., 1918-04-17
AIR BATTLES ARE
WELL DESCRIBED
Corp. Lynch Comments on Obser-
VatiOnS Of the AViatOrS

Aerial activities In France are in
terestingly described in Il letter just
received from. Corporal S. j. Lynch
OF Company I, 1O2nd United States
infantry, somewhere. Tho letter
was written under the date Of March
10, and at that time the corporal had
done his first trick in the trenches.
II am sitting In my dug-out in that
large city called somewhere To
give you a little better idea, we are
which gives one a wonderful view
of the valley below. The weather the
past week might be compared to our
first week in June at home and the
spring fever is prevalent. The front
is only a few miles away and we are
in rest camp after being in the first
line of trenches. came through
without scratch" BY inference it
may be assumed that not all the
members were as fortunate as Cor
poral Lynch.
Air battles are common and 1t Is
nothing extraordinary to see a fleet of
20 or more in the air at one time
Once in a while a boche gets nosey
and comes over for a visit. Then the
fun begins. Old 'Anty, as the air
craft guns are called, begin to speak.
Next you see shrapnel burst UP near
Fritz and he begins to naneuver for
a new position, by gliding or soaring.
Next you see a machine with bulls
eye-the allied type-start up to play
with him, and in a few minutes you
can hear the put, put put Of the
machine guns as they circle round
each other. Did you ever see the
kids at home when they played
round-a-rose-bush? We'll just
picture two aerop1anes doing the
same thing and you have an air fight.
The French surely are wonders in
the air and there's not many boches
with their big black crosses dare
come over our lines In daylight, At
night, Of course, they are more bold.
saw a raid some time ago. The
boche came over to take photos and
the photographic machine was pro
tected by two machines. A French
man darted after them and started to
burn up machine gun ammunition and
broke up the party. Next old 'Anty'
gave 'em a greeting and they sailed
back home. It was q wonder some
Of the machines did not come rolling
down.
II walked over the hills about
mile some time ago to see the wreck
Of a German plane that a, French
man got. I picked up a couple
pieces Of the machine and a few but
tons off the uniform OF one of the
Germans. I expect to have a few
souvenirs when I get back to the
u. s. again.
"Watchng these air raids has
baseball games beat a mile. The
other Sunday the bunch got q. base
ball game started. We had two
gloves-felders' mitts at that two
basebal1s and a home made bat,
turned out from a tree by one Of our
woodwork artists. All things constd-
cred it was some game. The catch
ers on both sides each thought his
twirler was a second Walter Johnson.
Needless to say our side won which
we honestly did, score to /. FOR
an audience we had about 200 fans,
Some air pilots came along quite low
and kept circling around, watching
the progress of the game. Another
freak Of the game was a flock OF
about 40 Of some rather large birds
T took them for wild duck-hying In
the shape of a V. They were about
800 feet in the air. They kept the
formation until out Of sight. 1t
seems even the birds over here are
getting onto military movements"
Corporal Lynch comments on the
fact that In response to inquiries
about friends the answer usually
given is, "Oh, he's in the army"
Now he contents himself with the
dope, ''Oh, he's in the army
"I showed the picture of Wabash
Giant to some French soldiers and
I wish you could see them stare at it
and exclaim:. ooh, la, Ia which
amounts to the same as some hog in
our slang It will not be long before
they will have q chance to see some
Of our locomotives on their own rails,
with that big Z. s. A plastered over
the side and they will not be any
anv more tickled than yours truly,
either"