In November, 1916, a series of brilliant conquests by British and French aviators had reduced the Germans to a secondary, if not actually a futile, part in the air. But after a period of bad weather and a lull in the fighting, German aviators again ventured over the Allies’ lines. Their enterprise, however, was short-lived. Proof of the Allies’ superiority was again seen on November 10 in an important aerial victory over the German lines. Thirty British machines defeated a greater number of the enemy—his strength is believed to have been between thirty and forty—while on a bombing expedition between Bapaume and Arras. The fact worth remembering is that the British airmen were not turned off, but that they punished their assailants decisively and then fulfilled their obligations as ordered, delivering seventy-two high explosive bombs on Vaulx-Vraucourt with satisfactory effect. ‘It is a pity,’ writes Mr. Percival Phillips, special correspondent of the _Daily Express_, ‘that such a thrilling episode of aerial warfare cannot be told in detail—but there are very few details to be had. The only eye-witnesses at close range were the intrepid airmen involved, who were so fully occupied with their own individual opponents that it was impossible to follow the fortunes of the entire enemy fleet until its ignominious disappearance. I am told, in the dry, matter-of-fact language of our airmen, that the British bombing ‘planes, flying at pre-arranged altitudes in a westerly wind, surrounded by their escort, sighted the German battle machines climbing through the rising mist to try to intercept them. The British fleet dropped to accept battle, and they closed a mile above the German trenches. ‘Then followed a breathless, furious duel, fought at a dizzy speed as the opposing ‘planes swirled and eddied through the clouds, intent on each other’s destruction. Machine-gun bullets ripped their hulls. They circled and dived with amazing confidence and accuracy. British and Germans alike drove their craft with superb skill, for the science of fighting in the air has become as intricate and difficult as handling a group of Dreadnoughts. No longer do the aeroplanes barge blindly at each other, firing point-blank, like old ships of the line. The expert crews twist and dodge in a manner undreamed of even a few short months ago, working their guns with nice discrimination, perhaps putting in one skilful shot where the pioneer guns of the air would have wasted half a drum. The battle was won as much by good airmanship as by the work of individual gunners. The German pilots were out-manœuvred. When at last their machines had enough of the fight—three of them had reeled earthwards, smoking wrecks—they dropped beyond range to examine their wounds, and the victorious British fleet passed on its way, in full view of the great army of spectators gazing upwards from the fields, road, and trenches below.’