In guaranteed fast colours Suitable for all purposes, at very reasonable prices struck terror into the hearts of the Germans in the trenches. Many attempts have been made to establish the identity of the "Mad Major." Most of these attempts were wrong. This "Scarlet Pimpernel" of the air is still serving in the Royal Air Force today in the person of Air Commodore (he was then Captain) A.A.B. Thompson. We may hear of his famous exploits once more.
It was he, in a Maurice Farman machine, who, frequently flying over the trenches at low height, and with a total disregard of ground fire, harried those German troops and aeroplanes who ventured to approach the front. Frequently at dawn, he would leave on a death-dealing mission, returning often with many bullet holes in his craft but never boasting of his own achievements. One of his famous exploits occurred when he chased a German Albatross plane over the front, and, armed with his pistol forced the enemy machine to the ground, contemptuously ignoring the heavy anti-aircraft and rifle fire. His plane was riddled with bullets, He was the original ground strafer (a pilot flying low and fung at the troops) and developed a technique in warfare that later played an important part in the victory.
In his recent book, "An Air Fighter's Scrap Book," Squadron Leader Ira Jones tells a classic tale of Capt. Gordon Bell, a fine pilot and a humorist of renown who made his name by daring exploits in the Great War. Of somewhat dandy appearance, enhanced by a monocle, he discovered humour in the humdrum things of life and improved his tales in the telling by an attractive stammer, which was as famous as his flying: On one occasion in France he had a forced descent which landed him upside down in a tree. The first person to reach the scene was a phlegmatic staff officer who fatuously asked "Have you crashed?" Capt. Bell, the inevitable monocle tightly screwed in his eye and struggling to get out of the aeroplane head first, haughtily replied "No, you-you da-da-da-damned fool. 1-1 al-ways land like th-this.
Capt. Albert Ball, v.c., of Nottingham, was the first British pilot to make a business of shooting down German machines from a single seater aeroplane. He was twenty years of age when he met his death pursuing German machines over the enemy lines.
Ball was a lone patroller. He gained the majority of his forty-two victories by lone adventures in the midst of enemy machines. He would patrol the sky until he spotted a formation of German planes and then fly into a good position to attack. Diving to the attack, he would tre a burst at the formation in the hope—and it was often realized—that one of the enemy planes would lose its station, its pilot suffering from an attack of nerves. Like a shot from a gun Ball would be down on the German, tackling the enemy at such close range that the rest of the formation would not dare reply with their own guns. There was joy throughout the Royal Flying Corps one day when his marvellous feat of attacking twelve enemy bombers and Shooting down three became known. He dived straight into the middle of the enemy formation and had three of his rivals tumbling to earth in flames before he had expended all his ammunition.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.