CHAPTER XIII

THE RAID ON ESSEN

A new triplane of great climbing power and high speed came to the airdrome. Joe Little fell in love with it. Twice he took it on bombing expeditions and twice returned with reports of real damage to enemy supply stations and communications.

One night round the dinner table the boys of Joe's squadron planned a raid of some magnitude, and later asked permission to carry it into effect. It was a scheme to drop a load of bombs on the great Krupp works at Essen. This had been done by one or two individual fliers from Allied units, but the boys planned that with six of the new type triplanes, if they could be procured, a really effective raid on the great German productive center could be carried out.

The commanding officer did not disapprove the idea, but passed it above him for approval from headquarters. The boys had worked out the details carefully, and were keen on their project. At last permission came. Booth, one of the most experienced aviators on the western front, was to pilot one of the two triplanes of the new type that had been allotted to the airdrome, and Joe Little the other. The four other big bombing machines that were to go on this mission were to be sent from another air station nearby. Joe was pleased to be able to take Harry Corwin as his companion, and none of the twelve men who had been selected for the expedition worked harder over the plans and the maps than these two Brighton boys.

At last the night selected for the raid came. It was a study to see Joe Little inspect a machine before a flight, but on this occasion he went over the big plane with extra care. He stood by the right side of the tail for a minute chatting to Harry and then the two boys went over every detail of the machine. While one fingered the tail skid bolt the other examined the safety cable on the tail skid. Stabilizer, elevator, and rudder were gone over carefully. Control wires were gone over for their full lengths and their pulleys tried. Brace wires were felt for slackness, from the tail to the inside of the fuselage. The control wires to the ailerons, the pulleys and the hinges, nothing escaped the eyes of Joe Little.

Each blade of the propeller he searched for a minute crack. Every nut and bolt on the propeller he tried.

When in the machine and safely buckled to their seats, Joe ran his engine a bit, to satisfy himself that she was producing just the right music. The other five triplanes had been waiting. When Joe had satisfied himself that his machine was in perfect condition the word was given for the start. A series of staccato pops announced that the whole fleet was getting under way and they were soon circling the hangars and climbing off in the direction of the trenches. The long journey had begun.

The night was moonlit and the stars were bright. Not a cloud was to be seen. A fog obscured some of the low ground over which the squadron had to pass, but they steered by compass, keeping perfect formation. Finally the silver Rhine wound below them. Turning, they followed the river until Coblenz was reached, then turned north again. Germany's great manufacturing centers were passing below the squadron now, one after another. The countless fires of monster furnaces and factories, thousand upon thousand, glared into the night. The tall chimneys and furnace stacks belched forth red, yellow, and white flame as the munition works were pressed to their utmost to produce the sinews of war for the guns along the line over which the squadron had come.

By a certain point of identification all of the fliers knew Dusseldorf when that large factory center was reached. So far they had not seen an enemy plane. Essen was not far ahead now. Searchlights had been semaphoring over more than one town they had passed, but not until they had come over Dusseldorf did any of the Hun eyes from below see them. At Dusseldorf they were spotted and a veritable hail of anti-aircraft shell was hurled skyward. The signal to climb higher was given and they were soon out of reach of the "Archies."

As they approached Essen the fires from thousands of furnaces lit up the whole country round. Below them was the very heart of shell-production and gun-making. The sight was an awe-inspiring and magnificent one. The lights were so bright that the pilots and observers could hardly distinguish the flashes of the guns which were firing hundreds of shells at the menacing squadron.

Hovering but a few seconds above the scene of so much activity, guided by the flaring furnaces and the blazing chimney stacks far beneath, the signal was given to release the bombs, and down through the night air, into the fire and smoke, dropped bomb after bomb.

As they fell and exploded their flashes could be seen distinctly in spite of the blaze all about them. Great tongues of flame licked up heavenward as if trying to reach the aircraft that had hurled the destruction down upon the seething hives. A dull boom told of an explosion, and the air rocked with the disturbance.

Hundreds of pounds of high explosive fell on Essen that night. Great fires started here and there, visible to the Americans long after they had started for home, which they did as soon as their loads of bombs were loosed on the factories and munition plants beneath. Enemy planes had begun to climb up to engage the daring raiders, but the triplanes were well away before the German fliers reached anything like their altitude. Not one of the six bombers had been hit. Back they flew, satisfied that damage had been wrought to the enemy plants, back by the Rhine and the Moselle, back safely to their aviation base.

At last, ahead, the pilots could see the flares lit to guide their return. Each flier switched on his little light to see his instruments, and gracefully dropped nearer the ground. A night landing is always interesting. The familiar points near the airdrome have a strangely different appearance at night. Everything is vague in outline—-indistinct. Down the six machines dropped to the rows of lights, flickering in the night breeze. A last moment, then the instant for raising the elevator, then the gentle, resilient bump as the wheels touch the level floor of the airdrome, and the fleet is home.

It was a fine raid, well planned and splendidly executed. It did not cost our side a man nor a machine, and it spread death and destruction among the centers that turned out the means of destruction that had made the world-war a thing of horror. To bomb Krupp's works! The very thought had a ring of retribution to it! The very name Krupp had so sinister a sound. Well might the Brighton boys be proud of Joe for the part he had played in the inception of the idea and the work of carrying it through. They were proud. So was Joe's mother when she heard of it. Harry Corwin wrote home about it. He wrote three times, as a matter of fact, before he could concoct an account of the night flight that would pass the censor. Finally he accomplished that feat, however, and thus Joe Little's mother heard of what her boy had done. The brave woman cried a little, as mothers do sometimes, but her eyes lit up at the thought of the lad distinguishing himself among so many brave young men. Such a son was worth the sacrifice, she thought, with a sigh. "He is his father's son," she said to herself. And to her came his words, spoken many months before, "And my mother's," and her heart swelled with pride.