The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1936-10-21
BY H. r. KNICKERBOCKER
Copyright, 1885, by International
News Service)


TORRIJOS, Spain. - John
missed all the fun because he
couldn't see from underneath his
truckload of artillery ammuni-
ton that the red bombers were
getting into bad trouble.
Three little white WaSpS came
Kissing down out Of the sky from
so high above that I hadn't seen
them and began diving at the
formation of five. They fell out
Of formation and one Of them
faltered.
Then + saw what is the most
exciting thing you can see in
this war, men coming down out OF
a Shutdown airplane in para.
chutes. Two of them jumped. The
big plane, a two-engined Potez,
was circling when they jumped
and it went right on circling.
slowly circling, until very near the
ground, when it dived and crashed.
Land in NO-Man'S Land
Everybody jumped up to see
whether the red airmen would
land in red or white territory, a
very acute point, as you can well
imagine. But we couldn't tell, and
finally decided it must have been
no-man's land.
We are always hearing about
pilots shooting themselves when
they realize they are landing in
enemy territory, but have never
been able to authenticate q case.
Mostly, If they think it is worth
while bailing out they will think
it is worth while trying to fight
or sneak their way back to their
own folks.
For some reason the white fight
ers went away and the red bomb
ers came back. Especially one big
fellow flying all by himself, evil
IDENTIFY feeling quite secure in his
own machine gun protection.
He kept circling our lines, again
and again, lazy and confident, and
every time he got over his objec-
tive he let go six bombs, in regu-
lar time. Wham! Wham! Wham!
Wham! Wham! Then you could
see six big clouds of dust and
smoke go up, all fortunately far
away. Then he would come back
and repeat.
Keep Up Until Dusk
The red bomberS went on wham-
ming until nearly dusk and here
we were still about seven miles
from Toledo, where we had hoped
to march in with the first attack
ers, and now we realized Toledo
was not going to be taken that
night, and we had to choose be-
tween going back with the chance
Of being picked up by white patrols
and being arrested.
hated to turn back and
thought We ought to try to find
a bivouac with the officers of the
white battery, but maybe it was
wise, because there was q fearful
hullabaloo among our colleagues
when we did not turn up, and
stories were going about that we
had been put in irons and all such
nonsense. Anyway we did turn
around and when we got back to
the Guadarrana we found every
man jack cleared out, including
our car, chauffeur and supplies.
We hitched a ride in an ammu-
milton truck bound for Torrijos,
but it stopped a long time to re-
port to an officer off in the fields,
so we stopped a big laundering
passenger car loaded with red
bereted requetes, the Carlist boys
fighting for a unconstitutional
monarchy. Two Of them got out
and hung on the running board
and hemmed the three Of us in the
car.
Find Food and Rest
We got to TorrijoS away after
dark, and when we went to our
looted house, where we had spent
the previous night, we found it
full Of civil guards sleeping in
every available corner Of rubbish.
This looked bad, but Arthur
Menken saved the night. He had
seen q house that looked halfway
intact, and he knew that a woman
lived there who yesterday had Of
fered us jug Of water.
What luck. We found the