Bill Bruce on Forest Patrol

by Henry Harley Arnold

“It was a good plane, anyhow,” replied Batten. “Now I will have to break in another one. You had a mighty lucky escape and showed good headwork in getting away with nothing more than a wetting. I would hate to have to swim around in that cold water and wait for a slow old tug to come up and pick me up.”

The days followed along with regular squadron work. More artillery observation, aerial gunnery and bombing and the maintenance of the equipment. Then one morning Captain Smith told the officers that they would have searchlight practice with the anti-aircraft artillery that night.

Night flying was not a new thing to any of the officers of the squadron, but none of them had ever before gone up with the one purpose of dodging the searchlights. The drill was to give the searchlight men practice in locating airplanes and holding the beam on them at night.

Early in the evening the planes were all out on the line but Bill’s. The mechanics had not quite finished the work incidental with the installation of the equipment. Bill had just received a new airplane prior to his return from Oregon. The old engine had been replaced with a new one and then the radio, machine guns and bomb racks were put in place. Bill hoped that his plane would be ready for the night’s flying. Sergeant Breene was sure that it would.

The searchlight truck was placed at one end of the field and the flood lights on the hangar were tested out. When it became dark, the lights were turned on and the airdrome was as light as day. Beyond the ridge, at the end of the flying field, the anti-aircraft searchlights were throwing their beams into the sky. It made a beautiful sight. Occasionally the beams from two lights would cross in the sky. The operators would throw the beams from one side to the other, sweeping the sky from the horizon in the north to the horizon in the south.

Smith took the first mission and his plane disappeared in the darkness. It was not until he turned on his navigating lights that the men at the flying field could locate him. He climbed his plane to an altitude of over five thousand feet and then turned off the red and green wingtip lights. As soon as he turned them off, the game of hide-and-seek commenced. The searchlight beams were thrown around in an endeavor to locate the plane.

Once in a while the plane would be caught in a beam and Smith would dive, slip or make a quick turn. This made it necessary for the searchlights to locate him again. It seemed as if they could not hold the plane, for it was very seldom that they kept it in the glaring light. When he flew with his navigating lights turned on, the operators had no difficulty in keeping the plane in the beams, but as soon as he turned them off, things were different.

Each one of the pilots took his turn after Smith had completed his flight. Some of them were not as adept in handling their planes as Smith had been and the beams played on their planes longer. After talking with the other pilots as they came down, Bill was convinced that this aerial hide-and-seek at night must be wonderful sport. He was eager to get his turn.

“How about it, Breene, will we be able to get up tonight?” he asked.

“Everything will be ready in about fifteen minutes,” replied Breene. “I have very little more to do. I had to connect up the bomb racks so that we could take up some parachute flares.”