Tuesday May 28^th, 1918

Work morning. T.M.B. Pit 7am – 11am. Cold and raining during day. Good supper, fried meat and dripping. Wrote home.

Dog fight

Today the Battalion’s diary reports witnessing aerial combat which resulted in the enemy plane being shot down in flames. Reports of air raids and aerial combat in Macedonia were included in the British newspapers more regularly than other skirmishes during the first half of 1918. They were probably deemed exciting and had defined outcomes. As a case in point, a couple of days ago The Guardian carried the following report:

‘Operations in Macedonia
British Air Raids (from the War Office)
The naval contingent of the RAF carried out a successful raid on Drama aerodrome on the evening of  May 12. One enemy machine was observed in flames and two other enveloped in smoke. On the same day a hostile aeroplane was driven down near Livunuovo (Upper Struma Valley), two other machines were driven down west of Lake Doiran on May 15^th, and one near Hudova (Vardar Valley) on May 21. The aerodrome at Hudova was bombed by our machines on May 24^th.  All the bombs were observed to burst near their objectives, and obvious damage was caused to the hangars.’¹

The following short film clip from ‘Over the Front’ shows a bombing raid as well as planes in aerial combat.  There is a link to the complete film at the foot of this post.²

13^th (Service) Battalion War Diary – 28^th May 1918 – Sporan

Our artillery showed its usual slight activity. Enemy fired on Basin, Glengarry, Goldies and Dautli Village. There was more activity than usual on both sides in the air all day. At 15:15 hrs a fight took place between two of our planes and an enemy plane behind Pal B. The enemy plane was observed to descend in flames. 2 OR spent the day on the north slope of Goldies I. On the way out about 20 enemy were seen walking from direction of Selimli towards White Scar Hill. At 05:00 hrs 4 enemy were seen passing through Devedzelli Village.

New works were seen on the west slope of Diamond Hill and screening appears to be in progress on the West slope of Devedzelli Hill. At 24:15 hrs a Bulgar armed with rifle and bayonet approached our wire on Basin Hill. He was taken prisoner.

References & Further Reading

¹ Reported in The Guardian on May 25th, 1918 on page 5

² ‘Over the Front‘ copyright the Australian War Memorial. The footage was used as reference material for the video produced by Peter Jackson for the film, light and sound show for the Over the Front exhibit at the Australian War Memorial.