The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1918-07-25


have the cheek to show up that way.
| you knOww
But they laughed good-naturedly as
I came up to them, and welcomed me
to the squadron, and l was soon very
much at home.
My squadron was one of four sta
toned at an airdrome about eighteen
miles back Of the Ypres line. There
were IS pilots In our squadron, which
was a scout squadron, scout machines
carrying but one man.
A scout, sometimes called fighting
scout, has no bomb dropping or recon-
noitering to do. His duty Is just to
fight. or, as the order was given to me,
"You are expected to pick fights and
not wait until they come to you!"
When bomb droppers go out over
the lines In the daytime scout squad
ron usually conveys them. The bomb
droppers fly at about twelve thousand
feet, and scouts a thousand feet or so
above them.
If at any time they should be at
tackled, 1t is the duty of the scouts to
dive down and carry on the fight, the
orders Of the bomb droppers being to
go on dropping bombs and not to fight
unless they have to. There Is seldom
time that machines 60 out over the
lines on this work In the daytime that
they are not attacked at some time or
other. and so the scouts usually have
plenty Of work to do. In addition to
these attacks, however, the squadron
is invariably under constant lombard
ment from the ground, but that doesn't
worry us very much, as we know pref
| ty well how to avoid being hit from
that quarter.
On my first flight, after joining the
squadron, l was taken out over the
lines to get look at things. map out
my location in case / was ever lost,
locate the forests, lakes and other
landmarks and get the general lay of
the land.
One thing that was impressed upon
me very emphatically was the location
Of the hospitals, so that in case was
ever wounded and had the strength to
pick my landing l could land as near
as possible to hospital. All these
things n new pilot goes through dur
| ing the first two or three days after
| joining squadron,
Our regular routine was two flights
day, each Of two hours duration.
After doing our regular patrol, it was
our privilege to go off on our own hook
if we wished. before going back to
the squadron.
! l soon found out that my squadron
was some hot squadron, our flyers be-
ing almost always assigned to special
duty work, such as shooting up
trenches at height of fifty feet from
the ground.
received my baptism into this kind
Of work the third time went out over
the lines, and l would recommend 1t
to anyone who is hankering for excite
ment.. You are not only apt to be at
tackled by hostile aircraft from above,
but you are swept by machine-gun fire
from below. / have seen some Of our
machines come back from this work
sometimes so rlddled with bullets that
wondered how they ever held to-
gether. Before we started out on one
Of these jobs, we were mighty careful
! to see that our motors were in perfect
condition, because they told us the
'war bread was bad in Germany"
One morning, shortly after l Joined
the squadron, three of us started over
the line Of our own accord. We soon
observed four enemy machines, two
seaters, coming toward us. This type
of machine Is used by the Huns for
artillery work and bomb dropping and
we knew they were on mischief bent.
Each machine had a machine gun in