The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-06-14
GRATEST AIR-FIGHTERS OF THE
 WAR--THE "CIRCUS LEADER"
 COMPARED WITH OTHER "STARS"
By c. G, Grey.

DuL was 01SO d Spl6nQlu OISdnIZST dIlu a born leader of men. He commanded a full squadron for some before he died, not merely a flight of six ma chimes, and today those who served with him speak of him as the ideal commanding officer, kindly and thoughtful for those under him, a fine disciplinarian, full of clever new ideas, and as brave a man as ever lived. He was one of the old army, an officer of the Royal Engineers who passed through Woolwich before the war, and was learning to fly when the war broke out.
 Quite early in the war he won his D. s. O. for his skill in destroying a kite-balloon in Flanders, despite in- tense anti aircraft fire, using the bal loon itself as cover and so laying a stymie," to the guns. Later he re- ceived also the Legion DHonneur. His V. c. was awarded after a long series of victories over German aero planes, and before he had disclosed himself as the fine commanding off, Ger which he was. The squadron which he led in the fighting on the Somme did much towards establish ing that ascendancy in the air which contributed so much to our victories in 1916.
 He met his death at the hands of Rittmeister won Richthofen after a | prolonged duel during which a west wind drove the combantants far be- hind the German lines, so that when Major Hawker, whose machine was outclassed by von Richthofen's newer fY,1 down close to the ground, he was prisoner or else fight to a finish. He elected to die fighting.
 | After Major Hawker's death the Rame of Albert Ball became familiar to those who were closely in touch with the fighting pilots of the R. F. c. They talked of him as brilliant lad who specialized on lone-hand raids.
 Apparently he did well as a patrol leader or in formation fighting of any sort, and all spoke well of him, but it was his habit of going off all alone to look for Huns, singly or in groups, which interested the others. In the book on his too-brief life, which has been compiled largely from his letters to his family, one gets a fine picture
 of this modern version of the knight errant.
 Ball finally met his death---after
 bringing down A German machines
 in as good fight against odds as has
 keen fought in the air, and as General Trenchard wrote, This loss to the Fly
 ing Corps was the greatest loss il
 could susta in at that time" There is no doubt that it had a gravely de-
 pressing effect. After his death he
 was awarded the v. c. and the Le-
 zion D'Bonneur.
 The most recent to fall of the fa-
 nous French pilots was Captain Guy
 nemer, who was brought down ir
 Flanders with some 90 enemies to his
 account
 Guynemer's death had as depress-
 ing an effact on the French Aviation
 Service as Captain Balls had on the
 R. F. c.
 The latest of the famous pilots tt meet his death is Rittmeister Frei herr Manfred von Richthofen, tht longest of all the great German . pilots. A cavalry officer by training : horseman and game-shot of famil! , tradition, he was bound to be a first class pilot.
 Of all great pilots von Richthofe1
 alone has left deliberately write } book of memoirs, called ''The Red Air Fighter" From it one obtains mucl
 insight into the psychology of tn German fighting pilot of the bes ] class a man for whom his enemie ] in the air have a great respect Hi r book was evidently written to offcia s orders for propagandist purposes, am = has been carefully touched up an = censored; none the less one can de V duce much from known facts. Vo x Richthofen will go down to histor
 as the originator of the aerial cir . cus.'' He was one of Boicke's squad o ron, and when given command of = Bolcke's system. His men flew to . gether and performed like acrobati They painted their machines in a IL sorts of harlequin colors. They move i' from place to place wherever ther .e was the biggest crowd of enemies : And wherever they appeared the gave two shows day, one in th
 morning all together, and generally a series of solo turns-or 1one-har n raids---later in the day. So natural IT the R. F. c. nicknamed them ''vo -e Richthofen's Travelling Circus" n Till quite recently they flew Alba y tross biplanes, and when their leade Il went off presumably as a ls] zdxiser or instr0ctor-sone month III 9ffHseDor