Page:Victory at Sea - William Sowden Sims and Burton J. Hendrick.djvu/297

1918] by Ensign Keyes is typical of the flights which our boys were constantly making:

On June 4, 1918, we received orders to carry out a reconnaissance and hostile aircraft patrol over the North Sea and along the coast of Holland. It was a perfect day for such work, for the visibility was extremely good, with a light wind of fifteen knots and clouds at the high altitude of about eight or ten thousand feet.

Our three machines from Felixstowe rose from the water at twelve o'clock, circled into patrol formation, and proceeded north-east by north along the coast to Yarmouth. Here we were joined by two more planes, but not without some trouble and slight delay because of a broken petrol pipe which was subsequently repaired in the air. We again circled into formation, Capt. Leckie, D.S.O., of Yarmouth, taking his position as leader of the squadron.

At one o'clock the squadron proceeded east, our machine, being in the first division, flew at 1,500 feet and at about half a mile in the rear of Capt. Leckie's machine, but keeping him on our starboard quarter.

We sighted nothing at all until about half-past two, when the Haaks Light Vessel slowly rose on the horizon, but near this mark and considerably more to the south we discovered a large fleet of Dutch fishing smacks. This fleet consisted of more than a hundred smacks.

Ten minutes later we sighted the Dutch coast, where we changed our course more to the north-east. We followed the sandy beaches of the islands of Texel and Vlieland until we came to Terschelling. In following the coast of Vlieland we were close enough to distinguish houses on the inside of the island and even to make out breakers rolling up on the sandy beach.

At Terschelling we proceeded west in accordance with our orders, but soon had to turn back because of Capt. Leckie's machine which had fallen out of formation and come to the water. This machine landed at three fifteen and we continued to circle around it, finding that the trouble was with a badly broken petrol pipe, until about fifteen minutes later, when we sighted five German planes steering west, a direction which would soon bring them upon us.

At this time Capt. Barker had the wheel, Lt. Galvayne was seated beside him, but if we met the opposing forces he