AMERICA IN THE AIR 



341 



an extent that, after the second year of 

 the war, no movement was tried on the 

 Western Front without a most thorough 

 aerial preparation, and from that time 

 until the end of the war the offensive air 

 service, or that which gets out and fights 

 the opposing air service and then his 

 ground troops, constantly increased. 



Since the war the lessons gained have 

 been carefully studied, and their applica- 

 tion to future requirements has been ac- 

 curately estimated. 



The branch of aviation which has been 

 developed for bringing the enemy's air 

 force to combat and forcing it to fight is 

 called pursuit aviation. It is equipped 

 with the fastest, most maneuverable, and 

 most heavily armed airplanes that it is 

 possible to obtain.* 



Pursuit airplanes in the possession of 

 the principal powers at present are of a 

 speed of from one hundred and sixty to 

 one hundred and seventy miles an hour, 

 can climb to a height of 20,000 feet in 

 twenty minutes, and are equipped with 

 from two to four machine-guns. 



With an air force, team-work is more 

 essential than is tire case in any other 

 military organization, because the space 

 in the air is so vast and separation from 

 one's companions is so easy that the 

 utmost care has to be exercised to pre- 

 vent distribution and thereby allow an 

 enemy the advantage of concentration 

 against an isolated detachment. 



The degree of success of these opera- 

 tions depends on the training of the pilots 

 and their commanders and is a matter 

 of years and not of months. There is no 

 movement, combination, or method of 

 flying which must not be known in its 

 every phase by the navigating personnel 

 of pursuit aviation. 



This is the branch that has to be de- 

 pended upon to win the air battles, and 

 at the conclusion of the World War 

 it constituted more than 60 per cent of 

 all the offensive aviation. 



AN AIR FORCE IS THE ONLY DEFENSE 

 AGAINST SIMILAR FORCE 



The only defense against an air force 

 is another air force. Anti-aircraft guns 

 or any defenses against aircraft from the 



* See the National Geogkaphic's "Aviation'' 

 number January, 19 18. 



ground have comparatively little effect. 

 Only about one-tenth of 1 per cent of 

 the airplanes going over the line in the 

 American air service during the war were 

 shot down by anti-aircraft weapons. 

 While they are necessary, they are really 

 auxiliaries of an air force and can do 

 nothing decisive by themselves. 



Although the war probably advanced 

 aviation more than would fifty years of 

 peace, still a great deal has been done 

 since the war in the development of ap- 

 pliances really thought out during the 

 war. 



This has been particularly true of the 

 second great branch of aviation, which 

 is known as bombardment. This branch 

 carries heav) T missiles and drops them, or 

 projects them, at the targets that they are 

 designed to attack. 



THE AIR BOMB AS AN ENGINE OF 

 DESTRUCTION 



Loaded with the high explosives of 

 today, the modern air bomb will cave in 

 the whole fronts of buildings, shatter 

 armor, and demolish all sorts of military 

 objects, including the destruction of life 

 by concussion alone. "For instance, the 

 whole water-front at Halifax was de- 

 stroyed by an explosion in the harbor. 



Heretofore projectiles from large can- 

 non have been designed to pierce the 

 armor of battleships, and then cause their 

 effect by driving the fragments through 

 the bulkheads and into the various parts 

 of the ship. Twenty-five such shots went 

 clean through the German flagship Derf- 

 flinger in the Battle of Jutland, but, aside 

 from killing about 200 of the personnel, 

 never destroyed the speed of this ship. 

 These twenty-five shots altogether had 

 no more than about 1.000 pounds of ex- 

 plosive in them. 



But one of our present air bombs, which 

 weighs one ton and contains from 1.000 

 to 1,400 pounds of explosive, dropped 

 on her from an airplane, would have 

 zvrccked this ship to such an extent as to 

 put her Completely out of action and end 

 her usefulness as a war vessel (p. 347). 



( )ur cities in this country are particu- 

 larly subject to the destructive effects of 

 bombardment on account of the inflam- 

 mable character of the constructions and 

 in many cases the difficulty encountered 



