WAR

Voss ahead of them in the act of putting down another S.E.5. He was diving after
it, on a course that brought him almost under the British patrol. The leader
dived, followed by his men. The leader was Captain (later Major) James Thomas
Byford McCudden, V. C. With him were Captain R. T. C. Hoidge, and Lieutenants
A. P. F. Rhys-Davids, R. A. Mayberry, V. P. Cronyn, and K. K. Muspratt. Together,
these six men achieved a final score of some 140 confirmed victories.
Against these six opponents, Voss put up a ten-minute fight that is still
remembered
when Kaisers and Kings are dust.
As they dived, McCudden went to the right, Rhys-Davids to the left, and
they got behind the Triplane together. As they approached, Voss suddenly snapped
it around and threw a burst at them before any of the British pilots had fired a
shot. They scattered and closed in on him immediately, but his manoeuvres were
so fast none could draw a bead. He seemed to be shooting at all of them at
once. McCudden got behind him a second time and was thrown off instantly,
unable to match the dazzling movements of the Triplane. They had him literally
McCudden.
boxed in, yet he was shooting holes into all of them. Hoidge said that Voss was
doing things that were beyond comprehension. He could turn flat around without
banking, being headed the other direction in seconds. In that case there was
nothing to do but duck and let him flash by. McCudden, above, began to fire
and instantly the nose of the Triplane came up at him, both guns crackling. He
saw the flashes at the muzzles and heard the bullets going through his wings.
A British officer in a two-seater watched the fight from above and to him
it seemed the Triplane was moving like lightning. The S.E. pilots emptied the
drums of their Lewis guns and had to change them. They hit the empty air
nearly every time they fired because the Triplane inexplicably danced out of
the way and came back shooting at
them.
Voss was hit, however, and he was killed because he wasn't immortal.
Sometime during the fierce and compacted tangle he must have been wounded,
for when Rhys-Davids put the last burst into the Triplane it was flying straight
and level and Rhys-Davids almost ran into it, so unexpected was the steadiness
Rhys-Davids.
of the target. He passed the machine within inches and promptly lost sight of it
because it was hidden in the blind spot under the S.E. The only man who saw
the Triplane go down was McCudden, who was off to one side to change drums
on the Lewis. After Rhys-Davids passed, the Triplane wobbled unsteadily then
fell in a steep dive, going steeper and hitting the ground inside the British lines
where it disintegrated, appearing to burst into thousands of pieces.
One day almost a year before, in November 1916, McCudden and Voss had
met over the Somme. McCudden, in a D.H.2, had taken a position between a
Halberstadt D II and the German lines while four other British D.H.2's had
boxed it in. The Halberstadt had broken away and McCudden had tried to cut
off its retreat. He had got on its tail, but it had turned quickly to put him off
and the machine had passed at right angles at no more than 50 feet. McCudden
had got a good look at the pilot's face in this pass and later swore that the
pilot was grinning . . .
* * * 129
Hoidge.