Winged Warfare by William Avery Bishop Read Free Book Online Page A

eyes looking down upon us from the clouds—it was bad enough to have to submit to the ground observation from the German-held ridges. We were already accustomed to fighting the enemy aeroplanes over their own ground and thus keeping them as far as possible from our lines, but now we were assigned to a new job. It was attacking the enemy observation balloons. They flew in the same places almost every day well back of the enemy lines, but the observers in them, equipped with splendid telescopes, could leisurely look far into our lines and note everything that was going on. We proposed to put out these enemy eyes.
    We called the big, elongated gasbags “sausages,” and the French did likewise—“saucissas.” They floated in the air at anywhere from 800 to 3,000 feet above the ground, and were held captive by cables. These cables were attached to some special kind of windlasses which could pull the balloons down in an incredibly short space of time. Sometimes they would disappear as if by witchcraft. Wherever the sausages flew they were protected from aeroplane attack by heavy batteries of anti-aircraft guns, and also by what we came to know as “flaming onions.” These “flaming onions” appear to consist of about ten balls of fire and are shot from some kind of rocket gun. You can see them coming all the way from the ground, and they travel just too fast to make it possible to dodge them. I have never had an “onion” nearer than 200 feet of me, but the effect of these balls of fire reaching for you is most terrifying—especially the first time you have the pleasure of making their acquaintance.
    Our instructions were not only to drive the enemy balloons down but to set fire to and destroy them. This is done by diving on them from above and firing some incendiary missile at them—not by dropping bombs on them, as one so often hears in London.
    The British attack at Arras and Vimy was set for April 9—Easter Monday. On the fifth of April we started after the sausages. The weather at this time was very changeable, chilling snowsqualls being intermingled with flashes of brilliant warm sunshine. It was cloudy and misty the day our balloon attacks began, and the sausages were not visible from our side of the lines. I was assigned to “do in” a particularly annoying sausage that used to fly persistently in the same place day after day. It was one of the sausages with a queer shaped head, looking for all the world like a real flying pig—sans feet. Any new sort of hunting always appealed to me strongly, and I was eager for the chase when I crossed into enemy territory in search of my particular game. I flew expectantly in the direction where the balloon usually inhabited the air, but it was nowhere to be seen. I circled down close to the ground to be sure it was not on duty, and immediately found myself in the midst of a terrific fire from all manner of guns. Something told me to hurry away from there, and I did. The quickest shelter available was a rather dark and forbidding cloud, but I made for it with all my might, climbing as fast as my little single-seater would take me. What a relief it was to be lost in that friendly mist. Continuing to climb, I rose at last into the sunshine and then headed for home. My balloon had not been up, but my first experience as a sausage hunter had not been the pleasantest form of amusement and I was inclined not to like it very much. Later on I met with some success against the balloons, but the sport, while exciting, was not to be compared with another aeroplane.
    The weather cleared late in the afternoon of the fifth, and for the first time in my flying career I had the privilege of going out alone in search of a fight. There was not an enemy machine in the air, however, and I returned with nothing to report.
    Next morning bright and early I was again out “on my own” in search of adventure. I had been flying over