Licking Valley courier., 1918-11-14
THRILLING RAID
over HUN town
Young American Aviator Tells Of
Drive Over the Ger
man Lines.
SHELLS BURST ALL AROUND
Squadron Proceeds Methodic;iIy With
Its Work Under Constant Fire Of
Anti-Aircraft Guns-All Rc.
turn to Base.

TOnS are now DOmDlnR tllc hHlne var
ley along with the British. The Yank
pilots and observers, like their breth-
rem Of the royal air force, enter into
this sport" with the same spirit that
has made them famous on the baseball
diamond or football gridirOn of their
own American colleges.
A young American aviator has just
told Of n trip over the German lines
and back behind into German territory.
The formation in which the American
alrmen 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 boys story:
"After I had tried the guns on my
machine, checked the bombs, made
sure everything was ship.shape, and
put couple of little bombs into a
small bag beside me, I started my en-
gne. The big motors grOwled away,
waiting for the starting flash. Soon
the signal came and we were Off.
High Altitude Reached.
"FOr twenty minutes we climbed, un-
Ill 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 us.
The big guns crashed away cont.nu.
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
at us with their anti-alrcraft guns.
Once German searchlight got right
on us with its beam of light We fired
couple Of rounds of machine-gun
fire at the Germans who were manning
the searchllght, ID it went out.
= .sEas. balo# I've eoati sse- the
lights oil locomotive. Finally we
reached our objective. According to
plan, we thrnttled our motors and
gided toward the earth to get nearer
our target. It seemed curlOusly quiet
Then suddenly the earth seemed tt
open below us. Seventeen scarchlights
were turned on us by the Germans
and their shafts of light swept all
about us. The anti-uircraft guns
made Il wall ahead of us. The high
explosive shells burst on every side
of us, and the green-ilre balls swayed
and spirned as they tried to set us or
tirc. The American machines wen
straight on. with never n wavcr or 1
turn. There were so many crashes
that | thought more than once that W,
we're hit. We kept straight on.
Amid Binding Rays.
Suddenly one of the German
SCarchllghts got us and the rest of tn,
seventeen threw around us with sud
dcnncSs that made their cOncentra
tion feel like II blow. We fired ou
machine guns until the tips of tn,
weapons got red and the glow he
gan to creep up the barrels. TIL,
whole seventeen beams were on us, al
though we plunged and slde-sllppet
about in desperate way. We let g.
the bombs when we were right owe
the mark. The antlalrcraft shell
were getting even closer than eve
and the machine was hit time an
again, though not in n vital spot. VIII
we We're not literally blown out o
the air do not know. After we wer
we'll over the mark and had droppe
all our bombs we discovered one 25C
pound bomb which had caught fas
In the rack, and failed to drop whe
released. Consequently We swun
back on n second run and when W
were over the place which we hi
bombed we let 20 the last bomb an
scored direct hit far below.
eve went home at high spec,
We crossed our own trench lines 9
about 5000 feet up, saw some faml
lar landmarks, headed for our Ow
airtlrOme, fired our signal and q,
the answer. A few minutes later "
had landed. A glance over the mi
chine saw two big tears in the sid
Of the fuselage and many holes
the wings.
"But we had done u splendid hit
bombing, and such damage as our mi
: chine had suffered was by no meal
, difficult to repair"