Dropping Death from the Skies 



The bomb dropper and his murderous winged 

 weapons which deal quick and ghastly death 



Bv Carl Dienstbach 



Kadel and Herbert 



HARDLY had the airplane been 

 adopted as a military weapon some 

 four years before the outbreak of 

 the great European war, when the pos- 

 sibilities of bomb dropping began to be 

 considered. To the general public at 

 least, it seemed easy to wipe out a fort, 

 to demolish a bridge, or to blow up a 

 battleship by the simple expedient of 

 dropping on it a hundred pounds of high 

 explosive. Engineers knew better. Long 

 before the first 

 Zeppelin flew over 

 London, it was 

 pointed out that 

 it was hard to hit 

 a target on the 

 ground from an 

 elevated platform 

 moving at fifty 

 miles an hour and 

 more, because al- 

 lowances had to 

 be made for 

 deflecting winds 

 for the horizontal 

 motion acquired 

 by the bomb from 

 the airplane. To 

 hit a target the 

 plane's height 

 and speed over 

 ground had to be 

 known with almost 

 impossible ac- 

 curacy, and even 

 if known, an in- 

 finitesimal hesita- 



far-seeing than military engineers. It 

 reckoned with moral effects in its own 

 unreasoning way rather than with phy- 

 sical principles. Bomb-dropping has be- 

 come an indispensable mode of attack. 

 The civilians of all the warring powers 

 protest against it in vain. Germans de- 

 nounce the "baby killing" tactics of the 

 Allied aviators as hotly as England de- 

 nounces the German slaughter of defense- 

 less woman and children. Whether or 

 not fortified places 



Modern "fletched" airplane bomb. Note 

 streamline form, size, and weight, as shown 



tion in releasing the bomb would spoil the 

 aim. A truly super-human sense of time 

 was demanded. The difficulty, only 

 vastly exaggerated, is the same as that 

 which a hunter experiences in hitting 

 running or flying gamj by aiming ahead 

 of the target. Whether the target moves 

 .swiftly or the gun and the missile have a 

 fast motion of their own, aiming ahead 

 causes all the trouble. 



On the whole, the public has been more 



are bombed, civil- 

 ians invariably suf- 

 fer. A dozen 

 bombs may be 

 aimed at a muni- 

 tions factory. 

 One, perhaps, finds 

 its mark. The 

 rest are scattered 

 over a residential 

 quarter with an 

 effect too ghastly 

 to be described. 

 Aim at a powder 

 mill and you hit a 

 hospital. 



As the war pro- 

 gressed, bombing 

 became more ac- 

 curate, although 

 the misses still far 

 outnumbered the 

 hits. The reason 

 for this increased 

 accuracy is re- 

 vealed in the truly 

 remarkable pnotographs of French bombs 

 which we publish herewith and which 

 have been permitted to reach this coun- 

 try by a lenient censor. 



The bombs pictured have been called 

 "aerial torpedoes." They do bear an 

 outward resemblance to the naval tor- 

 pedo. For all that, the designation is 

 incorrect. The internal construction 



bears little resemblance to that of a naval 

 torpedo. The bomb shown is provided 



51S 



