Catoctin clarion., 1918-12-05
THRILLING RAID
over HUN TOWN
Young American. Aviator Tells Of
Drive Over the Ger
man Lines.
SHELLS BURST ALL AROUND
Squadron Proceeds Methodically With
Its Work Under Constant Fire of
AntI.Aircraft Guns-AlI Re,
turn to Base.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS DollllillS Siuu'
r0ns are now bombing the Rhine val
ley along with the British. The Ynnk
pilots and observers, like their breth-
rrn of the royal air force, enter into
this "sport" with the samesspirit that
has made them famous on the baseball
diamond or football gridirm OF. their
own American colleges.
a young American avintor has just
rold of II 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 hoy's story:
"After ! 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-
gine. The big motors growied away
waiting for the starting fash. Soon
the signal came and we were off.
High Altitude Reached.
"TOr twenty minutes we climbed, un-
til the earth was just black blot. An
other twenty-five minutes and we were
over the trenches, with the searchers
cropping about in the mists below u.s.
The big guns crushed away cont.nH-
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
ut us with their anti-aircraft guns.
Once German searchight got right
dn us with It's beam Of light. We fired
Il couple Of rounds of machine-gun
fire at the Germans who were manning
the searchlight, and 1t went out.
Ear below us we could soc the
lights of locomotive. Finally we
reached our objective. According to
plan, we throtted our motors and
glided toward the earth to get nearer
our target. 1t seemed curouSly quiet.
Then suddenly the earth seemed to
open below us, Seventeen Senrchlights
were turned on us by the Germans,
and their shafts of light swept all
about us. The anti-aircraft guns
made wall ahead of us. The high
explosive shells burst on every side
of us, and the green-fire balls swayed
and spiraled as they tried to set us on
fire. The American machines went
straight on, with never Il Wuyer or Il
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
soarchlights got us and the rest of the
seventeen threw around us with sud
dcnness that made their concentra-
ton feel like blow. We fired our
machine guns until the tips Of the
weapons got red and the glow be-
gan to creep up the barrels. The
WhOle seventeen beams We're on u.s. al
though we plunged and side-slipped
about in desperate way. We let go
the bombs when we were right over
the mark. The antiaircraft shells
were getting even closer than ever
and the machine was hit time and
again, though not in a vital spot. Why
we We're not literally blown out Of
the air do not know. After we were
we'll over the mark and had dropped
all our bombs we discovered one 250-
pound bomb which had caught fast
i'm the rack and failed to drop when
released. Consequently we swung
back on second run and when we
We're over the place which we had
bombed"we let 90 the last bomb and
scored direct hit far below.
1--WE went home at II high speed.
We crossed our own trench lines at
about 5000 feet up, saw some famil-
iar landmarks, headed for our own
airdrome, fired our signal and got
the answer. few minutes later we
had landed. A glance over the ma
chine saw two big tears in the side
of the fuselage and many holes in
the wings.
but we had done splendid bit Of
bombing, and such damage as our ma
chine had suffered was by no means
difficult to repair"