The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-04-23
Solve Great War Mystery By Discovering Indentity
 Of Guerilla Air Fighter

or had been forced down in flames and had pertshed amid the flames in [ this lonely part of the forest.
 "Of Erschauer's madness there can | be no doubt, for his acts were those of 8 madman. When he reached Mannheim in the evening of March 18th he circled over the town and do scended low His machine was clearly recognized by its special ularkings and the people congregated in the streets to give q welcome to this hero of the air While they were demon strating two bombs were dropped. and terrible explosions were caused right In the heart of the town.
 "Over POO people were killed out right and many were badly 1n171red. besides the damage to a number of public buildings, including the Cen tral Post Office. No one eyer saaTns 10 nave thought of madness to ac-
 court for this extraordinary behavior of a presumably German pilot. and ii was supposed by the German authori-
 ties that Erschauer had been 4orced down by the Allied airmen. and +1a+ one Of the latter had used his machine as a Tuse of war to enable him to at- tack our towns without being srs- pected.
 Bombed Krupp's.
 After the bombs were droDDed German machines went up to attack,
 the visitor, but the guns of the de- fences remained silent for fear of causing panic and death in the crowd ed streets. The mysterious raider got away and in the course of the next two days, having repIenished his petrol supplies in some manner not revealed, he made similar attacks on | other towns including Heidelberg | where he damaged part of the Cathe- | dral and College buildings; Essen, where he dropped bombs on a shell 1 factory at the Krupp Works; and | Baden, where he caused the death of i nearly hundred people who had as 1 sembled outside the ducaI palace to
 watch the flight of this daring German ] airman.
 1 After the visit to Baden the raider 1 was pursued and brought to action by | two of the airmen sent to defend the 1 town after one of the Allied raids on 1 It. There was a desperate fight for l over an hour, in the course of which l the mad raider killed the pilot of one
 machine and forced the other down | in flames. the pilot and observer be ! ing killed.
 | Prior to his appearance over l Mannheim this raider appears to have l flown over Dutch territory, for the de-
 scription furnished by the Dutch au- thorities tallies with that given by 1 those who knew the machine used bv Erschauer and the pieces of bomb we have examined are 6S%4OusIv from the type supplied to Gotha raiders at that time.
 AbIaze!
 Tn his wanderings over Germany the mad raider appeared twice over Berlin, but for some reason did not ! drop bombs. Probably the second i time he had used all his bombs On | this occasion he failed to comply with | the strict regulations then in force about warnings from German ma chimes approaching the capital. and i two of the machines patrolIing ap- preached to signal to the stranger. They were fired on, and one of the pilots was wounded. The mad raid CT then put on speed, and left his an tagonists behind.
 Later he was reported over the Black Forest, and in view of instruc- lions that had been circulated he was engaged by several German machines After very heavy firing the raiding machine was seen to be aIight at the tail, but apparently the pilot subdued the flames, for when he flew away rapidly towards the east there was no sign of either smoke or flame
 For more than q week after this German air patrols were on the look out for the mysterious raider, but not 0 trace of him was to be found. and it was not until the present inquiry was set on foot that the mystery was soIved.''