Journal Entry: December 5, 1915
St. Pol-sur-Mer

The last two days have been very productive in both helping me to hone my tactics and in destroying the hated Hun. I must say, that my wingmate Connor Milne has really taken my tactics to heart and is becoming quite the skilled scout pilot. In spite of the bloody bureaucrats at Wing, he has tallied 9 victories and looks to continue scoring. My last two sorties will serve as a perfect example of what I'm trying to accomplish with my flight. Yesterday's sortie was typical for us, we were ordered to fly a defensive patrol over a neighboring aerodrome. We were orbiting over the aerodrome watching the sunrise when here came two Aviatiks, I signaled Conner and we began our attack. I immediately noticed that Conner began his attack just as I had instructed him and in no time his opponent was spinning earthward. After I was certain he was okay, I began to attack my opponent and I quickly had him also spinning earthward.



You might notice from the photo how close I am to the enemy, well, I've discovered in my experiences that the closer you are to your opponent the better the opportunity for success. Our opponents both crashed within a mile of Coodekerque aerodrome so they were quickly confirmed.

This morning's sortie was a line patrol up near Niewpoort with Roderic. We were flying along enjoying the sunrise, when off to our west here came two Aviatiks returning from some kind of mischief. We began our attack and just like clockwork we had two more Aviatiks spinning to earth. Roderic is well versed in my tactics since he and I developed them together so it makes us a very efficient team. It's always gruesome when you get a flamer, but I feel pretty certain that because of how I attack the Aviatiks that I killed the pilot before the aeroplane burst into flames, at least I hope so.



Member and provider of banjo music for the Illustrious BOC