Bill Barnes Air Adventurer, July 1935 — page 77: what you’re looking at

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

AIR ADVENTURER 75 column of the Stormer until his knuckles showed white when he realized what Sandy was doing. “Pull her out, you little ape!’’ he bel- lowed into the microphone. “Pull her out !”” But the little ship went plummeting down and down with Sandy standing almost bolt upright on the rudder bar, his hand wrapped like a band of steel around the stick. Then his arm came slowly back. The nese came up, higher and higher. baffled wind shrieked and screamed through the stout bracing struts as Sandy peered through his hair sights. He stuck the nose down again, directly at the group of men throwing shells into the breeches of the fast-firing anti-air- craft guns. Malignant puffs of smoke had followed in his wake on that terrific dive. Now the guns became silent as Sandy’s fingers clamped around his gun trips. Men ran, screaming, in all direc- tions. His bullets raked the ground viciously. Men fell like tenpins under the hail of lead and tracers. Machine guns along the walls of the fort began to stutter. The anti-aircraft guns were useless against him because of his low altitude. The machine guns directed at him were ineffective because of his tremen- dous speed. His own aim was devasta- ting. He leveled off a bare two hundred feet above the ground. Machine-gun bullets drummed through his wings, crashed through his tail structure, ripped into the tiny cockpit. Perspiration ran down under his helmet and into his eyes. Men ran about on the ground like rabbits trying to escape his fire. His eyes were gleaming, his breath coming in short, agonized gasps. Looking up and back he saw that Cy had brought the big transport down di- rectly above the cluster of buildings in the fort. He pulled back on his stick The and zoomed upward as he saw a small opening appear in the bottom of the bomber and a small egg-shaped pro- jectile start its murderous journey to- ward the ground. Dust and dirt, bricks and stones flew in every direction as Bailey sent three of his bombs into the fort. Men dropped like tenpins again, folding up where they stood. Sandy fought the Eaglet as it bumped through the air. Then he dove toward the crude hangar and the five gray fight- ers about to take the air. Again his bul- lets sent men running in all directions. Laughing to himself he zoomed upward as he saw Cy circling back to drop more bombs. The place was a madhouse now. Bugles blared. Men shouted or- ders. The tat-tat-tat of machine guns blended with the roar of airplane mo- tors. Again the big bomber dropped a load of death and destruction. But there were men back at the anti-aircraft guns now. Puffs of white-and-blue smoke appeared in Cy’s wake as he zigzagged the unwieldly bomber across the sky to avoid being hit. As Sandy saw the first of the enemy planes speed across the turf and take to the air he again went into a dive. The air was interlaced with machine-gun fire. But in some manner that was beyond understanding he got through it. As the gray plane rose from the ground Sandy poured round after round of lead into it. It wavered at fifty feet and slipped off on one wing. The pilot slumped over the cowling as the little gray fighter stuck its nose down and crashed into a clump of trees. Sandy circled and waited for the next plane to take the air. Then he saw two machines take off at once in different directions. Bill Barnes, coming to Sandy’s as- sistance, saw them, too. He knew that Sandy could not be in two places at one time. While he shot down one of the oO COLA) clo@olx< CO