British and Australian airmen took a most active and brilliant
part in the battle. They dropped many tons of bombs on the enemy's masses, which were ideal ground targets. They skimmed over the heads of the men in close formation, and fired hundreds of thousands of rounds from their machine-guns into the Germans. They engaged the enemy's fighting planes in countless duels. In the five days from Thursday week to Monday one hundred and thirty-eight enemy machines were destroyed, while forty of ours failed to return, most of them being the victims of their own great daring in flying so low. Last Sunday alone forty-seven German machines were destroyed over the battlefield. On that day, too, our bombing machines visited Mannheim again, doing great damage to the factories and the railway, while at night they bombed the great station at Cologne, starting a fire, and also the stations at Luxemburg and Metz. General Salmond, in reply to the Air Board's congratu- lations, said that " all ranks have their tails well up," and that the superiority of our airmen has never been more marked.
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