Winged Warfare by William Avery Bishop Page A

the storm struck me. The moment before the snow deluge came, however. I had recognised the road that led to the aerodrome and coming down to fifty feet, where I could just make it out, I flew wildly on, praying all the time that the snow striking my engine would not cause it to stop. Then the awful thought came to me that perhaps I was on the wrong road. Then, even more suddenly than it had come, the snow stopped—the storm had swept right over me. There, just ahead of me, I saw the tents and hangars and the flying pennant of the aerodrome—home. This was my first experience in flying through snow and I did not care for another.
    A few days after my unsuccessful experience with the red Richtofen scouts, I got my just revenge and a little more back from the Huns. My Major had been told to have some photographs taken of a certain point behind the German lines, and by special permission, he was given the privilege of taking them himself. The point to be photographed was about seven miles in German territory and in order to make a success of the snap-shotting it would be necessary to have a strong escort. The Major offered to go out and do the photographs on his own, without an escort, but the Colonel would not hear of it, and so it was arranged that an offensive patrol would go out at nine o’clock in the morning, meet the Major at a given point, and escort him over the ground he wished to cover.
    My patrol was the one working at the time and I was the leader. At 9:30 we were to meet, just east of Arras, at 6,000 feet. The rendezvous came off like clockwork. I brought the patrol to the spot at 9:28 and two minutes later we spied a single Nieuport coming toward us. I fired a red signal light and the Nieuport answered. It was the Major. I then climbed slightly and led the patrol along about a thousand feet above the Nieuport in order to protect the Major and at the same time keep high enough to avoid too much danger from antiaircraft fire. We got to the area to be photographed without any other excitement than a very heavy greeting from the “Archies.” There were a number of big white clouds floating around about 6,000 feet, and these made it difficult for the guns to shoot at us. But they also made it difficult for the Major to get his photographs. We went around and around in circles for what seemed an eternity. During one of these sweeping turns I suddenly saw four enemy scouts climbing between two clouds and some distance off. I knew they would see us soon, so it occurred to me it would be a brilliant idea to let the enemy think there was only one British machine on the job. Under these circumstances I knew they would be sure to attack, and then the rest of us could swoop down and surprise them. I had no intention of letting the Major in for any unnecessary risks, but it seemed such a rare chance I could not resist it.
    I led the patrol about two thousand feet higher up and there we waited. The enemy scouts did not see us at all, but they did see the Major. And they made for him. The first the Major knew of their approach, however, was when they were about 200 yards away, and one of them, somewhat prematurely, opened fire. His thoughts—he told me afterward immediately—flew to the patrol, and he glanced over his shoulder to see where we were. But we had vanished. He then wondered how much money he had in his pockets, as he did not doubt that the four Huns, surprising him as they had, would surely get him. Despite these gloomy and somewhat mercenary thoughts, the Major was fighting for his life. First he turned the nose of his machine directly toward the enemy, poured a burst of bullets toward a German at his right, then turned to the left as the second machine approached in that direction and let him have a taste of British gunfire as well. This frightened the first two Huns off for a moment and, in that time, I arrived on the scene with the rest of the patrol.
    One of the Huns was firing at the