Brewster 'A Glimpse of War through a Private's Eyes', a retrospective account of experiences in World War I, 1915-1917 / John James Brewster - Page 364
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[Page 364]
waist (except only a dirty singlet) mud covered up to the knees & over the arms, yet perspiring "like navvies in the hot sun". The ration parties always "came in" at night time.
The Aeroplane fights are very interesting to watch but almost invariably these never occur unless the Huns are numerically stronger. The Allied Airmen will attack on almost every occasion & time & again a single machine will attack an opponent even at the risk of having to come under fire of four or five others, but upon any occasion when a fight on a large scale seems about to take place, should a start be made it is not long before numbers of Squadrons of battle planes will be seen "coming up" practically from nowhere, when invariably the Huns will either try to ascend very high, or retire back behind their own lines, evidently with the object of bringing the Allied planes within range of their "Archies" or anti aircraft guns.
Unfortunately quite a number of allied planes were brought down but only when attacked by more than one Hun.
The daring & skill of the Allied aviators are really something wonderful & on this front they, easily, had command of the air. For some weeks it was observed that the Hun planes would come over after our Scouts had retired for the night, this looked as if routine work had been set for our men to do, & it was not very long before the Huns observed that the Allied airmen apparently were working to a "time table" plan & therefore the Huns would never venture near our lines till the last plane of the Allies had decended. The men on the trench "work" reported this to the officer in charge, for they could see the effect of this on their work.
Four or five Hun planes would come out just on dusk, when either the same night or the next morning portion of the trench would be blown in,