i6 
LAND & WATER 
December 19, 1918 
Victors of the Air : By Boyd Cable 
T 
LIEUT.-GENERAL SIR DAVID HENDERSON. 
HROUGHOUT the war the Germans and the 
British have followed two opposite policies with 
regard to their air victors. The Germans regu- 
larly "starred" their men, announcing in the 
Press their names and the ijicreasing total of their 
" aerial victories," while we 
scrupulously kept ours secret 
from the public. Richthofen, the 
" Red Baron " (killed in a scrim- 
maging " dog-fight " with a flight 
of Camel scouts) was the most 
famous and be-paragraphed of 
the German cracks, although 
Voss, on the evidence of our 
pilots who met him, and especially 
the S.E.5 men who finally brought 
him down, was perhaps a greatpr 
flier. 
On our side a very limited 
number of names came to be 
known to the public. Ball and 
McCudden being the most 
famous ; but it has been the 
greater glory of our air service 
that for one famous victor there 
were dozens and scores with long 
and amazing records of fights 
and victories who were rarely or 
never heard of outside the Air 
Force. 
Ball's wonderful work has been 
written of and told so often, both 
in his letters and by others, that 
there is little need to recount it, 
but the story of his last fight is 
perhaps not so well known. On 
that day he took out an " offen- 
sive patrol " of eleven machines, 
but the weather was bad and 
very cloudy, and after a little the formation broke up. 
The different little lots had several actions and downed 
some Huns before they returned. One lot of four found an 
enemy, engaged and shot him down. Separating again, two 
of them went on, and seeing a couple of Albatross scouts 
secured position {and dived on 
one apiece. One was crashed 
and the other escaped. In the 
engagement the two separated 
and shortly after one was 
attacked by five enemy machines 
diving on him. He fought, them 
for a time, but running short 
of ammunition broke off the 
fight and returned to the lines. 
Two of our other pilots after 
the formation separated had a 
brisk fight with several Huns, 
and one with his guns» jambed 
stunted and dodged while he 
tried to clear the stoppage, being 
hard pressed all the time and 
having his engine, under-carriage 
and planes buUet-holed. Despite 
this damage he managed to chase 
off his opponents and then, with 
a leaking radiator, and finally 
with his engine stopped, got 
back across the lines. Other 
pilots of the scattered formation 
also had some fighting, in the 
course of which another Hun 
was sunk, and one of our pilots 
had his goggles shot off his 
face. 
Ball, after the formation split 
up, found himself with two 
others, and continuing the patrol 
sighted eleven enemies. Ball 
was never in any way reluctant to take on the longest odds 
engagement, so the three promptly flew to the attack. A 
desperately hot fight followed, and wliat actually happened 
to Ball is not likely now ever to be known. He was last seen 
spinning down fighting hard with four close-pressing enemies. 
Unfortunately his two companions were unable to come to his 
MAJOR-GENERAL SIR HUGH TRENCHARD 
assistance because both had been severely wounded. One 
had his wrist and the top of his control lever shattered by 
an explosive bullet, just managed to pull out of the fight, 
cross the Imes and make a landing before he fainted ; the 
other hit by a bullet in the foot — a wound which I believe 
afterwards lost him his leg. 
There was a long night of 
anxiety in the Squadron and 
gradually-waning but hard-dying 
hope that Ball would yet turn 
up. His own Flight-Sergeant and 
men refused for long to give up 
hope, and his fellow officers were 
equally reluctant to believe the 
worst. The telephone was kept 
going all night making inquiries 
all over the country in the hope 
that he might have escaped and 
made a forced landing somewhere 
out of reach of his Squadron, 
search parties hunted long and in 
vain for him or for word of him. 
He had been through so many 
narrow escapes, had so often been 
pressed hard and just evaded 
disaster, had so frequently^^^raised 
anxiety by being missing for 
hours only to turn up at last with 
his happy laugh and boyish- 
delighted tales of hot fighting and 
another " closejshave, " that the 
others in the Squadron had belief 
almost to the point of superstition 
that " no Hun would ever get 
Ball." 
But at least he had a better 
finish than poor McCudden, such 
a finish as he himself would 
probably have wished, going 
down fighting hotly and dying hard against superior numbers. 
And Ball's Squadron well avenged his death. They were at 
that time flying the S.E.5, one of the best single-seater scouts 
on the front, and they were piling up a record of crashed Huns 
at tremendous speed and making themselves a terror to the 
German air service. And although 
he was at last brought down in 
fait fight, Ball's name will always 
stand high in the lists of our air 
victors. The official records 
credit him with fifty-one enemy 
machines destroyed. 
It was in May, 1917, that Ball 
was lost, and it was some months 
later when McCudden's name 
began to be noticed frequently 
and his record of crashed Huns 
to mount up. JJust before his 
death he had written an account 
of his own air work, but in this 
he hardly does justice to himself 
or to his startling exploits. 
He was a great "lone hand " 
fighter as well as formation 
leader. He would start off by 
himself " looking for Huns " and 
woe to the Hun photographic or ' 
artillery observing machines he 
caught trying to work anywhere 
near our lines. He would stalk 
his man or men with the patience 
of a Red Indian and the cunning 
of a backwoodsman, taking every 
advantage of cover of clouds and 
sun glare to approach near enough 
to his enemy for the last quick 
rush. 
He was the first pilot in the 
British service to get four Huns 
in one day. This was in December, 1917, and he went up 
m the morning " to look for E.A." (Enemy Aircraft) as his 
own Combat Report put it. He found three two-seaters and 
engaged them, but as they were above him he could not secure 
a good position and had to be satisfied with driving them all 
off east of the Imes. But a little later he spotted an L.V.G. 
