lee: aviation and the war 231 



However, it is not all luck. The man who is highly trained will 

 make more hits than one who is not. There is a special course in 

 bombing and a special course on the bombing sights which are 

 attached to the aeroplane. 



There was a friend of mine, Harvey Kelly, who went out flying 

 a great deal alone. He was a happy-go-lucky sort of fellow and 

 thought that he could come and go as he pleased. There wasn't 

 anything that he would not try. Once he saw a battery firing 

 and let off one bomb at it. He saw no result so he came up again 

 and let off another one. He happened to look out over the other 

 side of his machine on his third attempt and saw that bomb burst 

 in a village about a mile away from the battery. So you see it 

 is none too easy to drop bombs accurately on any place. 



Machines are frequently used nowadays for going up and down 

 the lines, picking off men in the trenches, and generally making 

 things uncomfgrtable. Nothing is more detrimental to morale 

 than to have aeroplanes continually flying overhead, and the 

 same is true of the observation balloons. The men on the ground 

 think that you can see far more than you can, even when the 

 aeroplane is 15,000 feet above the ground, when as a matter of 

 fact you can't really see any details at all. There is always the 

 possibility of having a battery of guns directed upon them that 

 keeps the men thinking and worries them. If there is a column 

 of infantry moving behind the lines, the aeroplane cooperating 

 with the artillery can always have a battery of guns directed into 

 it. What with aeroplanes flying overhead all day and bombing 

 going on all night, the morale of the soldiers in the trenches has 

 to stand a severe test. 



Bombing by night requires a great deal of practice, and night 

 bombing now is a matter to which serious training is devoted. 

 Every night the machines go over the lines and keep the enemy 

 awake as far as possible. After a long spell of trench work, 

 possibly ten days in the trenches, when the men are at the rear 

 resting and playing games, to be continually disturbed at night 

 cannot but have an effect on their efficiency, making them less 

 likely to be of use when they go back to the trenches. That is 

 one object of bombing — to prevent the enemy from having a rest. 



