[Sailor Steve]

August 26:

"I am being kept very busy out here. Last night there was a comic raid on the Forest of Houthulst. It is six or seven miles behind the lines near Dixmude, and the Huns use it as a rest camp - boucoup de stores and ammunition there too. The French idea is to set it on fire with incindiary bombs. Over forty machines took part, including self - perfect weather conditions - no clouds but very hazy, so when one got high up one was almost invisible. I got to just over 11,000 feet, but even then had one or two shots near me. Below me the air was simply a mass of bursting shrapnel. French artillery also opened fire on the place. There must have been beaucoup de noise in the forest. Most amusing - a really soft job as some one remarked."
Harold Rosher, letter to his mother, August 26, 1915

"What do you think of the 40 warships bombarding Zeebrugge? We were all due out there, of course, some spotting, and fighters to protect the spotters. As luck would have it, the weather was dud - clouds at 1,500 feet - with the result that no one got there except a solitary fighter, and he was rewarded by a scrap with a German seaplane. I got just past Ostend, but gave it up as engine was running none too well.

By the way, Bigsworth this morning dropped a 60 lb. bomb bang on top of a German submarine and completely did it in - Jolly good work."
Harold Rosher, letter to his father, August 26, 1915

(Note: there is no German record of a U-boat being lost this day, to aerial bombing or any other cause)



Air War: Max Immelmann of Germany scores his second victory. The victim's type is unknown, but described as a bomber.



Aegean Sea: Johannes Kirchner, commanding UC-13, sinks Italian sailing vessel Sahina Noria, 37 tons, near Orak, Turkey.