Aircraft and Submarines / The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day Uses of War's Newest Weapons

by Willis J. Abbot

Whether the rush of air, the sudden increase of pressure, or the passing off of the effect of the blow caused the disabled man to come to his senses is not known, but when the machine was only a few hundred feet from the ground, Lieutenant C. recovered his senses sufficiently to realize his position and managed to pull the machine up and make a landing. He then lapsed into unconsciousness again. Had he remained in his state of collapse half a minute longer, he would inevitably have been killed.

Another curious case of wounding was that of Lieutenant H., who was also returning from a bomb raid. When passing through the heavily shelled zone his machine was hit by a shell, which passed through the floor by the pilot's seat and out at the top without exploding. Lieutenant H. thought it must have been very close to his leg, but he was so fully occupied with manœuvring to dodge other shells that he had no time to think of it.

He crossed the line and began to plane down when he was aware of a feeling of faintness, but pulling himself together he landed his machine, taxied up to the sheds, and attempted to get out. It was only then that he realized that his leg was shot almost completely off above the knee; the lower part was merely hanging by a piece of skin.

Incredible as it may seem the shell which hit his machine also tore through the leg—luckily without exploding—unknown to Lieutenant H. Probably the force of the blow and excitement of the moment caused it to pass unnoticed and the torn nature of the wound helped to close the arteries and prevent his bleeding to death. He recovered, and though no longer flying is still engaged in doing his duty for the duration of the war.

Raid on a Troop Train
by John E. Whiting.

The courage and dash of the American aviators, serving with the French Army, led the Allies to expect great things of our flying corps which should be organized immediately after our declaration of war. About the time of that declaration Major L. W. B. Rees, of the British Flying Corps, came to the United States for the purpose of giving to our authorities the benefit of British experience in raising and equipping aërial fleets and in the development of the most efficient tactics. Major Rees in an official statement set forth many facts of general interest concerning the various flying services of the belligerent armies. The British, he said, fly on three levels with three different kinds of machines. Nearest the ground, about six thousand feet up, are the artillery directors who hover about cutting big figure eights above the enemy trenches and flash back directions by wireless to the British artillerists. These observers are, of course, exposed to attack from anti-aircraft guns, the effective range of which had by the middle of war become as great as ten thousand feet. Yet, as has already been noted, the amount of execution done by these weapons was surprisingly small. The observers are protected from attack from above, first by the heavy fighting planes, flying at ten thousand feet, carrying two men to the plane and able to keep the air for four hours at a time at a speed of 110 miles an hour. They are supposed to use every possible vigilance to keep the enemy's fighters away from the slower and busy observing machines. In this they are seconded by the lighter one-man fighting machines which cruise about at a height of fifteen thousand feet at a speed of 130 miles an hour and able to make a straight upward dash at the rate of ten thousand feet in ten minutes. The aviators of these latter machines came to describe their task as "ceiling work," suggesting that they operated at the very top of the world's great room. They are able to keep the air only about two hours at a time.

Americans, perhaps, gave exaggerated importance to the work of the Lafayette Escadrille which was manned wholly by American boys, and which, while in service from the very beginning of the war, was the first section of the French Army permitted to display the flag of the United States in battle after our declaration of war. It was made up, in the main, of young Americans of good family and independent means, most of them being college students who had laid down their books for the more exciting life of an airman. They paid heavily in the toll of death for their adventure and for the conviction which led them to take the side of democracy and right in the struggle against autocracy and barbarism months, even years, before their nation finally determined to join with them. In the first two and a half years of the war, seven of the aviators in this comparatively small body lost their lives.

Harvard College was particularly well represented in the American Flying Corps—although this is a proper and pertinent place to say that the sympathy shown for the allied cause by the young collegians of the United States was a magnificent evidence of the lofty righteousness of their convictions and the spirit of democracy with which they looked out upon the world. When the leash was taken off by the declaration of war by the United States the college boys flocked to training camps and enlistment headquarters in a way that bade fair to leave those institutions of learning without students for some years to come.