Imperial Valley press., 1937-04-04
BY Romaldo Beast Pacheco,
Lieutenant Commander r. NJ, Retired
and Whit Wellman
(ConcIusion)

lY next trip aloft was with Nieuport
NJ scouting escadrille, in a two-seater car
rying small Navy type machine gun, mount
ed aft, and eight bomb racks, four on each side
of the fuselage When within a few miles OF our
objective, my pilot banked and began tossing
out eggs, staring over the side to watch their
effect Seven bombs landed correctly, but the
eighth eluded me. What had happened to it?
Then we banked again and l felt dull thuo
on the fuselage My last bomb was suspended
on one of the wing supports well out OF reach
1 pounded the pilot on his back, waving fran
tically. BY much arm waving I got the story
over, explaining like an excited mute He side
slipped three times, but with no result the
bomb still danged below.
Landing was out of the question almost
any sort of blow would explode this egg. Our
gas was running out minute by minute, and
we knew that couldn't stay up forever, even
if at the moment we'd felt like it. There was
but one thing left to try for me to hang out
of that cockpit while the pilot made a sharp
left bank, trusting that of three things
would happen. Our egg might dlsodge lts
denotator might crack against strut or cable
hard enough to explode the thing or 1
might dslodge myself from the snip IL was q
toss up. This 1 pantomimed to the pilot ana ne
secured a firm hold my leg as / thrust 1t
into his cockpit Slowly lowering my body was
barely able to reach the offending egg give
a Jerk at it and shoot the terrible object on its
Journey as my pilot banked exactly right.
Suuirming and tugging, l managed 10 regain
INV former more comfortable position, and we
scurried for the drome. We had no gas to spare
On the ground again, we shook hands telt
we'd accomplish about two days work in
few minutes.
1--WE DAYS later my machine gun jammed
r when we engaged a German as he tried
to withdraw from the tangle. We got first
hot
our motor swapping oil and gas lines, and sew
ering one strut. My pilot Lieutenant Rensaleve,
took three eaden slugs, two in the shoulder, one
in his wrist and there we hung in the over
cast sky six or eight miles north of our lines
Motor was dead and no place to 60 But two
fortunes favored the wind was right, blow
ing stiffly southwark and that French or
ficer was intent, despite his wounds, on pulling
us out of the hole. He headed straight for the
Allied lines We swung crafty, making some
progress but steadily losing altitude. Wed been
disabled fairly well up, and had some leeWay
but within what seemed minutes we were
sweeping 200 feet above the ground. Rensaleve
pitched forward, head on the stick, unconscious.
1 reached for him, for an instant not knowing
if he was dead just knocked out. l pulled
I'D the nose of the Nieuport as far as it would
go .. .. . but there was nothing to do but head for
a nearby group of trees, trusting to the good
God and mans luck to hit them near the top.
We did some of the upper limbs sheering
off. Then our landing gear tangled in branches,
and over we went, upside down. Not badly, II
was about IL foot crash, at the end. Crashes
are strange affairs Minor ones often kill you,
and great ones occasionally spare pilot and OBJ
server Our planes nose buried itself in the soft
earth 1t was a bad spill for the wounded pilot,
and shook me up considerably left few
scratches on me. But we were at least WITHIN
the lines and before long Frogs came running
titao nrnh
two more air casualties and we surprised
them by being very much alive.
Lieutenant Rensaeve went back to Bhghty,
and I never saw him again; he'd saved his lie
and my own by quick thinking and pluck. 1
heard later that he came out of the hospital a
we'll man and was reassigned to duty. Whether
he lived out the war or not, never knew
RIDERS called me to DunSrk for work in
y conjunction with naval action. Before its
devastation by long range guns it had been a
picturesque quiet little place popular with
tourists When I rolled in it was desolate. Roofs
were gone and the effect of those murderous 4SO
mm guns which later was to search for was
all too plain The Allies had started avia-
ton base there For expeditions which soon would
bomb Zeebrugge and Ostend and locate stray
U-boats. A group of navy officers loafed near a
few hydroplanes, bombers and several Shor
hydroplanes.
My first flight as an observer on tnls new Jop
was a jaunt to the zeebrugge mole, some 40
miles, We carried the usual eight bombs, and
kept well off shore, out of range of land bat
teries. All sea planes of the group were equip
ped with carrier pigeons in small cage; these
were our S. o. S. in case of trouble.
Ten miles out of zeebrugge we were sighted
Germans opened fire with 200 mm.'s but their
aim was wild. We flew over the old mole and
they opened up on with IT'S. Hanging as low
as we dared l sighted several destroyers and