One of the most thrilling encounters I can recall is that of Captain Woodhouse, who, accompanied by another pilot, was out over the Prussian lines. One of the Prussians gave chase and opened fire. Woodhouse made believe that he had been hit, and his companion brought the machine down in a field. Immediately the Prussian, in one of the latest type battle planes, made his landing and went over to the other machine without bothering to cover the pilot with his revolver, Woodhouse meanwhile lying as if dead. Suddenly he leaped up, jammed his revolver under the Boche's nose and marched him over to the big battle plane, got in after him and with the gun against his ribs took him back to our lines, a prisoner. Later he returned and got the Prussian machine. Besides the machine there were some valuable papers taken, which proved very useful later.
In the Royal Naval Air Service there is a young lieutenant, Murray Galbraith by name, with whom I once trained at the school at Dayton, Ohio. Murray is a great big fellow who gave up a splendid future—his father is one of the Canadian silver kings—to go into the flying service. He was sent to Dunkirk to do patrol work for one of the monitors lying off the coast. Over at Ostend the Prussians had made their staff headquarters in a certain hotel. Galbraith spotted this hotel and directed the shell-fire of the monitor with such accuracy that the Prussian staff barely escaped annihilation.
On one of his flights over the Prussian lines he encountered five machines, one of which he disposed of. He got away from the rest and, coming on toward the Somme, ran into another group of Boches. Two of these he put out of business with a withering fire from his Lewis gun and then executed a loop and started earthward. His engine gave out, but he was just high enough to glide back over their lines and then to a point of safety near our lines.
When he landed his machine was literally shot to pieces. He received the D. S. O. for this and, I believe, has since been decorated again. (Retold from New York Herald.)
"THE LEGION OF DEATH"—WOMEN SOLDIERS ON THE FIRING-LINE
How the Russian, Serbian, and German Women Go to War
Told by Officers and Eye-Witnesses from the Battlefields
Tales of the Great War bring stories of thousands of women fighting as soldiers in men's uniforms on all the battle-lines—in the trenches, in the artillery and cavalry, and going "over the top" in the bayonet charges. "The Legion of Death"—a battalion of Russian women, under command of Vera Butchkaroff, has fought many hard battles with the Russian Army. They are pledged to take their own lives rather than become prisoners of the Germans, who have ravished and attacked them. Each woman soldier carries a ration of cyanide of potassium to be swallowed in case of capture. Mme. Colonel Koudasheva commands the Sixth Ural Cossacks, of which one-fourth of the soldiers are women. The Serbian, German and Austrian women are in the ranks. Official dispatches mention them for orders of bravery. A few of these stories are told in these pages from the following sources: I—War Correspondent of New York American; II—William G. Shepherd, War Correspondent for United Press; III—War Correspondent for Salt Lake Tribune; IV—War Correspondent for New York World; V—War Correspondent for St. Louis Post-Dispatch; VI—London Daily Telegraph.
(Many are the tales that will be told of these women soldiers in the "New Russia," but this is sufficient to prove that womanhood the world over always rises to the emergency, when home and country are in danger—Editor.)