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Updated: May 17, 2025
In the lead went the battleplane containing the squadron commander, forming the apex of the triangle, and showing a fiery red eye in the shape of an automobile rear light as a rallying point for all the other machines. Then the seven other battleplanes sank away from the apex, three on one side and four on the other, that of the Air Service Boys being the one to the rear of all the rest.
On the morning of November 10, 1916, a German battleplane attacked two British biplanes between Nieuport and Dunkirk. It shot down one and forced the other to retreat. In the forenoon three German battleplanes met a superior British aerial squadron off Ostend and attacked it. After a combat the British were forced to withdraw.
But their turn came at length, for in the dim light two big Gothas were discovered swinging in toward them as though bent on bringing about the destruction of the Yankee battleplane. Jack forgot about what was taking place below, since all of his energies must now be directed toward beating off this double attack. It had come to the point of self-preservation.
His grave was located later by one of his fellow air scouts. One of the remarkable feats performed by Yankee air men, was that of Lieut. Wm. T. Webb Jr. of Buffalo, a member of an American squadron which encountered a German battleplane while flying over the German lines.
Upon hearing the words uttered by the mechanic who handled the men working at their battleplane, Tom and his chum exchanged meaning looks. "Can you make it perfectly safe again before half an hour passes?" asked the former anxiously. "Surely," came the confident reply. "I know what's in the wind, and you'll be fit for any sort of flight when another fifteen minutes has gone by.
There have been critical times, as for example when the Fokker scourge of late 1915 and early 1916 laid low so many of the observation craft. But the Fokkers were satisfactorily dealt with by the de Haviland and the F.E.8. pusher scouts and the F.E. "battleplane," as the newspapers of the period delighted to call it.
Tom was not so sanguine of success as either of his mates; but he kept his doubts to himself. As an ambitious airman he was thrilled by the vastness of the scheme. As Lieutenant Beverly had truly remarked, while it held chances of disaster, they were accepting just as many challenges to meet their death every day of their service as battleplane pilots.
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