Bill Barnes Air Adventurer, July 1935 — page 13: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AIR ADVENTURER of Squadron 8-11 in a long, tow climb. At five thousand feet they tested their Vickers guns with short bursts of fire and the major signaled to Shorty to get some more air between his ship and the ground. Their mission was to observe what the Germans were doing behind their own lines at a certain railway junction. Word had come back that they were massing troops for a surprise offensive Headquarters wanted to know where and why. Archies whoofed below them, the smoke from their bursting shells spread- ing out like tiny clouds. They bored straight ahead paying little attention to the antiaircraft guns—avoided making too easy a target of themselves. They saw a formation of German Albatross planes far to the north of them. Shorty fingered his gun trips longingly. He had been concentrating on his guns recently. He had learned that a man could roll and loop and do Immelmann turns to perfection, but it would do him no good as a Hun hunter if he could not shoot straight. Young Major Wyndam had drummed a lot of things like that into his head. He often smiled when he remembered the first impression Wyndam had made on him. In the first place he couldn’t understand the way he talked, and in the second place he seemed to be trying to lose the War instead of win it. He had seemed so casual about it all. But he changed his mind the first time he saw the major dive on a German plane, maneuver for position, let out a burst of fire and zoom upward. He hadn’t even waited to see what had hap- pened to the enemy plane. He knew! Shorty had watched the plane plunge downward with a dead pilot at the con- trols. He feared no odds. Shorty had seen him attack a dozen German planes single-handed, shoot down the leader and fight off the rest one after another. When all his ammunition was gone he | 11 zoomed upward into the clouds and disappeared. He had taught Shorty the tactics of surprise, how to dive on the enemy out of the eye of the sun so that the dazzling sunlight blinded his foe. And how to steal up behind and just below an enemy plane so that he was “sitting on his tail” from where one straight burst of fire would send him plunging earthward. The major and Shorty were flying tip to tip now. The war-butchered earth below them turned from a_ beaten, muddy brown to light-green as they got farther and farther behind the lines. A silver sliver that was a river wound in and out of the meadows. Men in greenish columns of fours were plodding toward the front on every road. Suddenly the major pointed to fast- moving planes far below them. Shorty saw that they were German Fokkers. He counted the black-crossed wings. There were ten Fokkers flying in V formations of five each. The major pointed to the left and then at himself. Shorty nodded. They flipped their tails into the air, opened their throttles wide and roared downward. They checked their Vickers guns and spare ammunition as_ they dove. The wind screamed through their struts and braces. The wires of their superstructures shrieked and whined. Down and down they plunged holding their fire until the last minute when they would be sure of at least one victim each. Shorty kicked his rudder slightly and eased over his stick. His eyes were mere slits in his taut, tense face. His mouth was a thin, straight line. He slid his hand forward to grasp his gun trips. His Vickers jawbered tongues of flame. Shoving his stick forward a trifle his tracers danced into the Hun cockpit. The pilot pitched forward over his con- trols and the plane plunged toward the earth. Glancing over his shoulder Shorty oO nn) CO Ghook CO