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12
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CAPTAIN CLARK GIVES GRAPHIC
ACCOUNT OF EARLY
AIR RAIDS.
This is another “first hand” story
ot the way Prussianism make war
and written by one who knows
whereof he writes.
Captain William Arthur Clark was
in hospital service at La Panne.
Belgium, from December, 1915, to
May, 1916. He is now the surgeon
in charge of ward C-S.
His former fact story, written in
the virile style of a fiction classic,
has been the subject of much com
ment. The following description
of a Teuton air raid is one of the
most gripping that we have read
since the war opened.
“The Prussian is cruel by-
birth; csivilization" will make
him ferocious.”—Goethe.
Although the German monoplane
called a taube because of striking
I e-’emblance to a dove has been super
seded by the more stable biplane, the
name is still used as a sort of generic
term for all Teuton aeroplanes.
At La Panne, up at the north end of
the western front, our principal form
of excitement was the tauhes. The ap
pearance of one over the village creat
ed a disturbance similar to that caused
by a hawk over a poultry yard, the
warning siren and boom of the anti
aircraft gun was the cry of the cock.
The simile has been well expressed
in a sketch by Colette Yver;
“Have you heard sometimes in a
poultry yard the strange whistling cry
of the cock whose round eye raised to
the sky has seen a hawk? It is the
cry of alarm, even of panic, from the
instinctive protector to warn the com
munity of which -he has charge. And
the chickens, responding to him in ter
ror, scramble to shelter cackling be-
wilderedly.”
Every one goes to his cellar. Most
of the houses have the cellar windows
barricaded against fragments of bombs
with sand bags and rocks. Since the
air bombs always come almost straight
down, and not from an angle as do the
shells, one feels reasonably safe in the
cellar or even on the first floor if the
house has three or more floors. The
air homb.s at tha.t lime (1916) wei^rh-
ed about thirty pounds and were not
so destructive a.s' Vlenpelin bombs
which are about the size of a punching
hag and weigh more tiian a hundred
pounds Tlaiiv ■'vhe been U'rough
I'cth air raids and ur; 11 ry shelling s'-.y
they ]irefor Hie larter '.--cause the shell
gives a warning screatn while the “i -s;
soimd fr 111 (111 air P'.ah Is the cra-iii.
These c!.‘-:i.'i -ioi.'s as to preference
in bombardments was in n wuy amus
ing to us—just as one would discuss
how one liked one’s tea, “with r with
out?” “One lump please, no lemon;
tha.nk you.”
However, the nppearan'’e of a taube
at the dizzy heights at which T fl^st
saw one on (hat hr'ght January day
did not cause any alarm as the inhab
itants had learned that they never
diop bombs I’lom such heights The
high altitude flyin.g is only for ob
serving and photographing, but they
v'fro never allowed to look around to
their hearts content My attention was
firht directed to ;nis fellow high uj)
in the blue sky hy a shot over my
head It was diu'icult to locate him at
first but by searching among the white
smoke puffs of LiirsLing shrapnel he
was found glisiening in the sunlig'it
like a downy mcrh. If the aim of
bomb droppers: i.s tvild, and we found
it to bo so oil our visits to villages"
and camiis alter air la’ds, the aim of
the anti aircraft guns is wilder still.
Many times [ saw just such an occur
ence as tlmr—the tiny moth flitting
aho.iit among the flock of shrapnel,
sometimes an allied plane being fired
upon hy t.lio ITussians. sometimes the
Bolgiams firing on a f.aube—and the
re.siilt, or rather the Jack of result,
was aluays the some The moth a -
ways L'.,t a wav
Hnt they do not ah'/aya come just *o
look arciund. One evening after a Bri-
i.sli monitor had been t’.irowing shells
■Willi impunity ill jiftorroon into the
(••.rmuu lines from a osition aboot
three miles straight out from our
beach, three of them suddenly came
out from a cloud and started to bomb
the ships. The vessels were taken
by .surprise but it was not many sec
onds before they had their rapid-fire
one-(pounders trained on the bird men,
and the batteries on shore soon took
up the fight, it w’as a fierce and spec
tacular skirmish for about fifteen min
utes. In the growing darkness the
shrapnel flashed brightly against the
low clouds and although we could not
see the planes on accotmt of the
.smoke from the guns and misty clouds,
the hum of their motors and steady-
boom of their bombs told us they
were persistent in their attack. The
monitor’s convoy, including a large
destroyer, turned quickly and retreat
ed at full speed toward the Channel,
hut clip big ship herself, slower and
more clumsy, made a wide turn and,
evidently considering it useless to at-
leni|it to escape, held her position. In
the mixture of def.nnations we could
not distinguish those of the ship’,s
guns from those of the bombs, nor
could w, discern the outcome of the
fi.glit or- account of darkness, but we
learneu siei th.at all the ships es-
cajied ‘-■cnic-us injury and all the
l.aiihps got away.
Althoiigl-i our hospital was never in
tentionally I'.omhed, they came within
a block of us (-i.ring raids over the
village and the railway station. They .
came in the hrealunp; dawn or gather
ing dusk, the tune of choice for air
raids, v/heii it is just light enough to
see whero to let fall their tokens, yet
not ligh tenough to be easily seen
in the sky The first raid I went
throagh is well runembered. Down in
thy village the streets were crowded
with soldiers and the little shops, poor
ly lighted, some of them only with can
dles, wore busy. A bright half moon
hung in the clear sky. At the first
liouih. which founded as though it,^
might have been abotu a cpiarter of a
mile away, the warning siren screamed
from the observing station and every-