Fulton County tribune. (Wauseon, Ohio) 1883-1925, 1918-08-09

the attention of our scrappy. country
men below Us.
SO we dove down on those nine
Huns.
At first the fight was fairly even.
There were eight of us to nine of them.
But soon the other machines which l
had seen in the distance, and which
were flying even higher than we were,
arrived on the scene, and when they,
in turn, dove down on us, there was
just twenty of them to our eight!
Four of them singled me out. l was
diving, and they dived right down after
me, shooting as they came. Their
tracer bullets were coming closer to
me every moment. These tracer bull
lets are balls of fire which enable the
shooter to follow the course his bull
lets are taking and to correct his aim
accordingly. They do no more harm
to pilot if he is hit than an ordinary
bullet, but if they hit the petrol taAk
good night When a machine catches
fire in flight there is no way of put
ting it out 1t takes less than Il min
ute for the fabric to burn off the wings
and then the machine drops like an
arrow, leaving a trail of smoke like a
comet.
AS their tracer bullets came closer
and closer to me / realized that my
chances of escape were nil. Their very
next shot, felt, must hit me.
Once, some days before, when 1 was
flying over the line, 1 had watched a
fight above me. a German machine
was set on fire, and dived down
through our formation in flames on it's
way to the ground. The Hun was div
ing at such a sharp angle that both
his wings came off, and as he passed
within a few hundred feet of me 1 saw
the look of horror on his face.
Now, when 1 expected any moment
to suffer q similar fate, l could not
help thinking of that poor Huns last
look of agony.
I realized that my only chance lay
in making an 1mmelman turn. This
maneuver was invented by German
one of the greatest who ever flew and
who was killed in action some time be-
fore. This turn, which made success
| fully. brought one of their machines
right in front of me, and as he sailed
along barely ten yards away, 1 ''had
the drop" on him. and he knew it.
! His white face and startled eyes ]
can still see. He knew beyond ques-
ton that his last moment had come
because his position prevented his tax.
ing aim at me, while my gun pointed
straight at him. My first tracer bullet
passed within yard of his head, the
second looked as if it hit his shoulder
| the third struck him in the neck, and
then l let him have the whole works
and he went down in a spinning nose
dive.
All this time the three other Hur
machines were shooting away at me
1 could hear the bullets striking my
machine one after another. l hadn't
the slightest idea that could evel
beat off those three Huns, but there
was nothing for me to do but fight, ant
my hands were full.
In fighting, your machine is drop
ping, dropping all the time. l glanced
at my instruments, and my altitude
was between 5000 and 5000 feet
While 1 was still looking at the in
struments, the whole blamed work
disappeared. A burst of bullets wen
into the instrument board and blev
it to smithereens, another bullet wen
through my upper lip, came out of tn
roof of my mouth and lodged in m
throat, and the next thing,I knew wa
when 1 came to in German hospita
the following morning at five O'CLOCK
German time.
was prisoner of war.