Cheers From Opposing Trenches
Far and wide along the trenches the word was spread. Firing stopped as though a flag of truce had been hoisted. Germans and English left covers and sought positions of vantage from which to watch the battle royal. At the appointed time both flyers rose promptly and made their way over “No Man’s Land.”
“Cheering arose,” relates an eye-witness.
“There were wild cheers for Ball. The Germans yelled just as vigorously for Immelman.
“The cheers from the trenches continued; the Germans’ increased in volume; ours changed into cries of alarm.”
Immelman was known to have a method of attack peculiar to himself. Instead of approaching his adversary from the side, he maneuvered to get squarely behind him. His study was to hold the nose of his machine almost on the tail of the aircraft he was pursuing. This gave him, Abbot points out, what used to be called in the Navy a raking position, for his shots would rake the whole body of the enemy airplane from tail to nose with a fair chance of hitting either the fuel tank, the engine, or the pilot. Failing to secure the position he coveted, this daring German would surrender it with apparent unconcern to the enemy, who usually fell into a trap. For just as the foeman’s machine came up to the tail of Immelman’s craft the latter would suddenly turn his nose straight to earth, drop like a stone, execute a backward loop and come up behind his surprised adversary, who thus found the tables suddenly turned....”
We have left the description of the duel with the English in alarm.
“Ball,” continues the eye-witness, “thousands of feet above us and only a speck in the sky, was doing the craziest things imaginable. He was below Immelman and was apparently making no effort to get above him and thus gaining the advantage of position. Rather he was swinging around, this way and that, attempting, it seemed, to postpone the inevitable.
“We saw the German’s machine dip over preparatory to starting the nose-dive.
“‘He’s gone now,’ sobbed a young soldier at my side, for he knew Immelman’s gun would start its raking fire once it was being driven straight down.
“Then in a fraction of a second the tables were turned. Before Immelman’s plane could get into firing position, Ball drove his machine into a loop, getting above his adversary and cutting loose with his gun and smashing Immelman by a hail of bullets as he swept by.