Evening star., 1918-02-10
LONE FL|ER HOLDS
GERMAN ATTACKS
British Aviator, Defying All
Danger, Uses Up Three Ma.
chimes in Day.
BATTLES NEAR CAMBRIA
Of tho Associated Press.

Correspondence of the Associated Press.
SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE, January
15-A stirring story Of how one daring
British aviator, like a guardian angel.
held up for a,whole day repeated enemy
British line at Cambria in the height Of
the desperate struggle there by using
four airplanes one after another as they
were torn and crippled by enemy fire,
has just come to light
It shows that some of the most daring
and dangerous airplane work OF the
past year has been in the new field OF
attacking enemy infantry from the air
The Germans were trying to recover
portion Of the lost Hindenburg line.
pushing with a great weight Of men and
dcult for the British to bring up re-
serves. The British battalion opposing
the attack had gone to earth in little
isolated groups among the shell holes,
grimly determined to hang on to the
end.
Tho German masses had already
movAd across no mans land into the
battered earthworks that once formed
the British firing line. Other masses
were moving up in support, and already
the nearest shell holes were heaving
and boiling over with the restless heaos
and shoulders of men about to renew
the advance. The barrage of the British
guns was heavy. but at close quarters
only infantry can stop the progress OF
infantry, and the fire from the British
shell holes had grown weak and strag-
Cling. 1t looked as II the scanty Brit
ish line would be overwhelmed by sheer
weight Of numbers.
Air Alive With Bullets.
Tho fire from tho Germans increased
until the air was alive with their bull
lets. 1t was the concentrated fire which
always precedes the rush to close quar-
ters. The blue-gray figures were al
ready beginning to appear above the
shell holes, their loose. Tapping uni
forms and hideous gas masks giving
them the appearance Of demons. when
suddenly into the smoke and murk OF
battle there dived British airplane.
Fifty fact from the gtaund II dat-
tened out and skiddod along the line,
dropping It's bombs among the be
T wi,ass sss MN 81 ess s.tseR asa L came skim.
ming back like swallow charging q
swarm Of flies, its machine guns en-
f1ading the advancing foe and driving
him back to his burrows
A storm Of German bullets swept
through the planes, and black fiame-
conferred burst OF enemy shrapnel
the ,airplane in vapor. The
watching infantry saw splinters fall
from its Quivering frame and the sill
very fabric Of the under wings was torn
in several places by shell sp1inters.
But the daring pilot finished his course
and vanished into the smoke clouds,
leaving the panic-strfcken enemy
clinging to his shell holes too shaken
and thinned to press the attack
further.
Little by little. however. the German
supports came up. advancing by short
rushes over the open. reinforcing their
comrades by twos and threes, in spite
of British fire. Scores and scores Of
their dead Uttered no mans land. but
gradually the strength of the attack
ing line was made good. and the shell
holes again began to heave and boil
as men rose from the lower cover and
laid hold OF the rims to assist them
over the top.