Series 01 Part 02: Hughes family correspondence, 3 April 1917-22 September 1918 - Page 410
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[Page 410]
2.
old machine were ample proof that we had been in among them! Again my lot were put up above but I had told the C.O. that this time if I saw any others hanging out of a fight I was going to go down into it & let them stay on top if they wanted to. We started scrapping soon after crossing the lines as the Huns were very many and the fighting was practically continuous for an hour & a half. As I expected there were some bright boys who preferred to keep above so I decided that it was up to me to help those who were in the scrap & went down followed by another of my flight. My gun was very erratic & rather cramped my style but I managed to get some good shots. One Albatross I fired at went down spinning but there were others about so I had no time to see what became of him. Another I sent down in a vertical line but was again too busy to watch him. So the first hour passed quickly as we were continually diving down then climbing up & reforming then fencing for position & diving again. Later I found that the formation was rather disorganised as I was leading about eight machines & the rest were somewhere else. Really another flight commander was leading the show but being unable to find him I went on with the odd collection who were with me.