Luck on the Wing: Thirteen Stories of a Sky SpyHaslett, Elmer
History
Luck on the Wing: Thirteen Stories of a Sky Spy
Haslett, Elmer
World War, 1914-1918 -- Aerial operations; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, American
or not, it followed me as I spun around three times in a complete circle
of three hundred and sixty degrees with the speed of a ballet dancer—I
was bent on getting anything near me. I stopped—looked frantically at
the pilot, expecting to find him dead. He had turned around to find out
what the rumpus was about. I did nothing but to give him a sickly smile
for I had nothing else to give. They had a signal commonly used among
observers to describe a cross with the forefinger and point when the
observer saw a German plane, but this was among the thousand things I
had not learned about aerial observation. So, he went on, straight
flying, just aimlessly drifting on.
I gradually calmed myself and looked into the sky above me and I saw
seven airplanes which were hidden from the view of the pilot on account
of the position of the wing above him. I was quite sure from the
lectures I had had in America from instructors who had never been at the
Front, that one could easily distinguish an enemy airplane by the huge
black cross that is painted all over it, and so I skimmed my eyes over
them trying to discern the cross. I could not, and yet the airplanes
stayed about six hundred meters above me and kept on circling around. I
decided that I was being duped and that there was some under my tail, so
I hung my anatomy over the fuselage and after a hasty examination I was
convinced that the only airplanes in that sky, except our own, were the
seven above me, and Jones, who was down by the battery still circling
around. I looked down at the panels and they were still frantically
waving that “Y” and peering at the planes above me I saw that they were
still circling around. I did not know what to do. In fact, I did not do
anything for fully thirty seconds, except to watch those planes, but
they did not make any sudden maneuvers or show any inclination to
attack. I looked down again and they were still putting out that big “Y”
and my pilot was just floating along as if nothing had ever happened; in
fact he had never seen the panels and was not paying any attention,
having undoubtedly an abundance of confidence in the ability of the
American observer, and as I could not disappoint him in his splendid
judgment as to my ability I just used my perfectly splendid logic and
decided that if they were German planes they certainly would have
attacked me before this time, and since they had not attacked, they
could be no other than French; and the solution was that the battery had
probably received notice from the Squadron Commander that there was a
green observer up and so they were undoubtedly flashing this “Y” trying
to play a joke on me, believing that I would run home, and thinking,
perhaps, that I had not seen Jones go down in his rapid spiral. So, I
decided to show them that they could not fox me and I just stayed up
there, floating around. After I had stayed up there for about fifteen
minutes Jones pulled out for home, and when I saw him shoot off in that
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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