CAPTAIN BALL, V.C. — HIS OWN STORY.
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The Self-Analysis of Britain's Greatest Airman Who Brought Down 47 Hun Aeroplanes and Was Then Killed in a Battle in Mid-air.
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By H. RUSSELL STANNARD
Now that Air Power is rapidly becoming the supreme factor of the war, it is time that the public learned something of the true story of the greatest of our fighting airmen, largely to whose peerless skill, courage, and example during those months of desperate struggle on the western front in 1916 and at the beginning of the present year the definite and final ascendancy of the British airmen over the Germans was established.
When all the known facts of the life of Captain Ball are published they will come as a startling revelation of the real character, ideals, and achievements of this national hero. It is, indeed, doubtful whether even his devoted parents until after his death fully realised the splendour of his short career and the wonderful inspiration it was to all his magnificent comrades at the front. But lately the information that has come to them from his brother-officers, the tributes that have come from all quarters of the globe—even from Germany—and the examination of Ball's own letters and diary have thrown something of a new light on his personality.
All this testimony has been carefully collected by the librarian in Nottingham and will be published in due course.
HATRED OF KILLING.
A volume of this kind should be made into a text-book for every school in the British Empire, for in it would be found the most God-like form of patriotism.
The truth is that young Captain Ball, barely in his twenties—the terror of the German airmen, the idol of his own colleagues—did not like killing, and as the toll of his victims mounted he actually began to wonder if he were not a murderer. And the more he fought and mastered his opponents the more the tragedy of it impressed his mind. But he felt it his bounden duty to himself and to his country to go on sending his enemies hurtling through the air to their doom unitl the day came when he too met his end.
The fire of patriotism burnt within this young man, surpassing every other emotion. He, like so many others who have gone, had no thought but what he could do for his country.
There is no doubt that he went into battle filled with something of that spiritual fervour which possessed the old Crusaders. Young as he was, and by no means given to philosophic or religious reflection, there are in between the sporting phrases of his letters typical of a public schoolboy devout references to his God. He was conscious of a Divine Presence that dwelt with him in his flights in the heavens and in the merciless combats with his foes.
"Re saying a few words to God when doing my work and when it is done," he wrote to his parents. "You ask me if I do when I get back safely. You bet I do; I even do when I am fighting; and in fact I put all my trust in God. In His hands I feel safe no matter in what mess I get."
It was the sort of thing that he would have been shy of saying in conversation, and his friends would never have thought of discussing it.
I first had the privilege of meeting him a little more than a year ago, when he was home for a long leave. He had just become famous to the world at large. Somehow the news about his achievements had crept into the papers, and when he came home a great civic welcome awaited him.
It was all disquieting to him. He was frankly disturbed at the prospect of going to Buckingham Palace; in fact, he said he would rather go back to the front and fight than face the ordeal.
A CONFESSION.
When I called at his father's house and waited for the airman to come downstairs I heard strange zoological noises. "That's him," said his mother quietly, and presently sliding down the banisters came this small, almost diminutive, battle-airman. He pulled a wry face when I asked him to talk about his fighting. He did not think it necessary. He was only doing the same as thousands of others. It was only after much pressure that he would discuss it at all.
And then he confided that he often felt very nervous before ascending but not much when he was off the ground, that he had had some wonderful escapes, and that occasionally he met "a real good sport of a Hun" who would fight alone and unaided. He told me with an expression of real joy on his countenance of his famous duel with a redoubtable foe which ended with honours easy.
How they manoeuvred round one another for a weak spot in vain, how they fired off all their ammunition, and how finally they flew together for a few moments side by side with their sides near to bursting with laughter at the humour of it all.
But he did not tell me of the day when he dashed single-handed into a fleet of 12 enemy machines and dispersed them, destroying 3, and then, returning for more ammunition, with the planes of his machine riddled with shot, going up again and attacking a fleet of 14 more and this time nearly losing his life.
But he did tell me with the greatest animation of his little allotment at the aerodrome in France where he grew vegetables and flowers, and how in between those terrible fights in the air he had devoted himself to the care of his garden.
The Weekly Dispatch - Sunday, November 4, 1917
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