Winged warfare : hunting the Huns in the air . 208 WINGED WARFARE would go back, get more machines to help,and then we would engage the lot in a realbattle royal. So many times we could notfind any of them, when we were just dyingfor a fight; now they were in such hugenumbers it would be folly to mix up withthem. We managed to have three short goes atdifferent artillery machines in the course ofhalf an hour next day, but they were not having any, however, and turned awayand fled towards home. Another time, while flying on the lines,my engine suddenly stopped dead. No-thing I could do had any e
Winged warfare : hunting the Huns in the air . 208 WINGED WARFARE would go back, get more machines to help,and then we would engage the lot in a realbattle royal. So many times we could notfind any of them, when we were just dyingfor a fight; now they were in such hugenumbers it would be folly to mix up withthem. We managed to have three short goes atdifferent artillery machines in the course ofhalf an hour next day, but they were not having any, however, and turned awayand fled towards home. Another time, while flying on the lines,my engine suddenly stopped dead. No-thing I could do had any effect on it, and Iglided back toward home. At first I was abit afraid I would not even clear the shellarea, and it meant crashing into some deephole, but there was a slight wind behind me,and with the help of this I glided on andon into clear coimtry, where there was anaerodrome. In one week I had no less than three enginefailures, although I have hardly ever hadone at any other time. But, as luck wouldhave it, I was always able to glide down. o a, G 3 h WINGED WARFARE 209 and just reach the same aerodrome. I gotto know it quite well by the end of theweek. On June 8th fortune favoured me. Ihad had two indecisive combats, when, tomy great joy, I saw in the distance anotherlayer formation of six Huns in groups oftwo. So I manoeuvred again, to attack thetop pair. After creeping up slowly andcarefully behind one of them, I opened fire,and he went straight away into a spinningnose-dive, which he could not come out of,and crashed into the ground. The othermachine of the top layer saw me, but hadno desire to fight, and dived away im-mediately toward the rest of his forma-tion. I pointed my nose down at himand fired, but he was too far away andescaped. This was again my day off, so I had de-serted my own part of the lines and flownaway up north where the battle of Messineswas raging, and I had heard there were moreGerman machines up in that was a good tip, and I was glad I
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookpublisherlondon, booksubjectworldwar1914191
