80 



Popular Science Monthly 



It is rarely that German machines — fighters 

 or scouts — appear over the French and 

 British lines; but the machines of the Allies 

 are always over the German lines. That 

 meant much at Arras. 



When these fast fighters first made their 

 appearance there were some single-handed 

 combats. A German and British charioteer 

 of the air would wheel about, jockeying for 

 a position in which, for a few fleeting 

 seconds, either might pour in a hundred 

 bullets at his enemy. It was a favorite 

 maneuver of the German flyer to rise very 

 high, to plunge down on an adversary, and 

 to fire as he came. But Boelcke and Im- 

 melmann were about the only flyers on the 

 German side who were either skilful or 

 daring enough to engage in frequent single- 

 handed combats. As a rule, the Germans 

 attacked a single British or French machine 

 in twos and threes. The procedure may be 

 attributed in part to the different tempera- 

 ments of Germans and British and in part 

 to military policy. 



Like Flocks of Birds the Squadrons 

 Maneuver 



The result has been that fighting in the 

 air is now undertaken, as a rule, only by 

 squadrons. Six machines, sometimes more, 

 constitute an aerial tactical unit. Their 

 pilot-officers live together, sleep together, 

 eat together. They know one another 

 better than if they were brothers. Every 

 mental and emotional characteristic is 

 bared. So it happens that in the air, when 

 the six machines are flying side by side in 

 twos, the men know instinctively what they 

 are to do. Have you not seen flocks of 

 birds on the wing, circling about with a 

 unanimity of understanding that makes it 

 seem as if they were obeying a command? 

 It is so with the air fighters of a squadron. 

 They move as one, like a flock of birds, with 

 never a word of instruction. 



An engagement between opposing squad- 

 rons in the air is not like a battle at sea — 

 a fight between fleets. Around and around 

 each other the planes whirr, each team 

 following the leaders with clock-like pre- 

 cision and automaticity. 



The opposing squadrons watch and watch 

 each other. Woe betide the man who lags 

 behind for a second, who manipulates his 

 controls a little too carelessly; who is not 

 quite en rapport with the team-mate in the 

 machine beside him! Two machines of the 

 enemy swoop down. He is cut off from 

 his fellows, like a bird from its flock. He 



must fight now for his life. Up and down, 

 in and out, he maneuvers with his foes. He 

 shoots when he can — when a hostile ma- 

 chine is directly in front of him. But his 

 enemies outnumber him. He cannot out- 

 maneuver two machines. One, at least, 

 must sooner or later swing around into 

 a favorable position. Then there is a squirt- 

 ing of bullets. The machine drops, a mass 

 of flame, three miles to the earth — a sicken- 

 ing sight even to those who have been 

 steeled to the horrors of the most horrible 

 of wars. A charred, twisted mass of metal 

 and wood is picked up. Within it is a 

 scorched, torn uniform containing an un- 

 recognizable, mutilated mass, all that re- 

 mains of a brave man who was not quite 

 quick enough, or whose mechanism failed 

 him for a fatal fraction of a second. 



How the Airplanes Carry War 

 Into the Atmosphere 



Whenever that terrible artillery prepara- 

 tion takes place of which we read in the 

 newspapers (the deadly hail of tons and tons 

 of metal that precedes an attack with the 

 bayonet) the fighting squadrons are high in 

 the air — twenty thousand feet above the 

 ground. Below them, at perhaps ten thou- 

 sand feet, are the two-seated fighters and 

 reconnaissance machines each patrolling a 

 section of the enemy's line, taking hundreds 

 of photographs. And below, at six thou- 

 and feet, are the machines that control 

 the artillery fire — machines that watch 

 each shot as it falls and that wireless 

 back the signal "too short" or "too long." 

 Without the reconnaissance officers the 

 scouts and the fire-controllers could not 

 perform their task; they would be attacked 

 and annihilated by fast airplanes mounting 

 machine-guns. To be sure, they are armed 

 themselves so that they can keep up a 

 running fight. But on the daring, fighting 

 squadrons far, far above the battle line, on 

 them depends the fate of an army; on them 

 depends the possibility of gathering the 

 facts that the heavy artillery in the rear 

 must have to fire at a mark ten miles 

 distant. 



To the all-seeing eye in the air, nothing 

 is concealed. It is that eye which has made 

 it utterly impossible for either side to 

 execute a flanking movement that would 

 envelop a whole army and compel a sur- 

 render, that eye which has made it necessary 

 for armies to burrow in the ground and 

 face each other in a nerve-racking, soul- 

 trying struggle. 



