© International Film Service.
Cruising at 2000 Feet.
One Biplane photographed from another.
Listen [said these advocates], we show you a way to spring full panoplied into the war, and to make your force felt with your first stroke. We are not preaching dreadnoughts that take four years to build. We are not asking for a million men taking nearly a year to gather, equip, drill, and transport to France, in imminent danger of destruction by the enemy's submarines every mile of the way.
We ask you for a cheap, simple device of wood, wire, and cloth, with an engine to drive it. All its parts are standardized. In a few weeks the nation can be equipped to turn out 2000 of them weekly. We want within the year 100,000 of them. We do not ask for a million men. We want 10,000 bright, active, hardy, plucky American boys between 20 and 25 years of age. We want to give them four months' intensive training before sending them into the air above the enemy's lines. In time we shall want 25,000 to 35,000 but the smaller number will well do to open the campaign.
And what will they effect?
Do you know that to-day the eyes of an army are its airplanes? Cavalry has disappeared practically. If a general wishes to pick out a weak point in his enemy's line to assault he sends out airmen to find it. If he is annoyed by the fire of some distant unseen battery over the hills and far away he sends a man in an airplane who brings back its location, its distance, and perhaps a photograph of it in action. If he suspects that his foe is abandoning his trenches, or getting ready for an attack, the ready airmen bring in the facts.
And of course the enemy's airmen serve their side in the same manner. They spy out what their foe is doing, and so far as their power permits prevent him from seeing what they are doing.
Now suppose one side has an enormous preponderance of aircraft—six to one, let us say. It is not believed, for example, that at this moment Germany has more than 10,000 aircraft on the whole western front. Let us imagine that through the enterprise of the United States our Allies were provided with 25,000 on one sector which we intended to make the scene of an attack on the foe. Say the neighbourhood of Arras and Lille. For days, weeks perhaps, we would be drawing troops toward this sector from every part of the line. Through the reports of spies the enemy's suspicions would be aroused. It is the business of an efficient general to be suspicious. He would send out his airplanes to report on the activities of the other side. Few would come back. None would bring a useful report. For every German plane that showed above the lines three Allied planes would be ready to attack and destroy it or beat it back. The air would be full of Allied airmen—the great bombing planes flying low and inundating the trenches with bombs, and the troops on march with the deadly fléchettes. Over every German battery would soar the observation plane indicating by tinsel or smoke bombs the location of the guns, or even telegraphing it back by wireless to the Allied batteries safe in positions which the blinded enemy could never hope to find. Above all in myriads would be soaring the swift fighting scouts, the Bleriots, Nieuports, Moranes or perhaps some new American machine to-day unknown. Let the wing of a Boche but show above the smoke and they would be upon him in hordes, beating him to the ground, enveloping him in flames, annihilating him before he had a chance to observe, much less to report.
What think you would be the result on that sector of the battle line? Why the foe would be cut to pieces, demolished, obliterated. Blinded, he would be unrelentingly punished by an adversary all eyes. Writhing under the concentrated fire of a thousand guns he could make no response, for his own guns could not find the attacking batteries. Did he think to flee? His retreating columns would be marked down by the relentless scouts in the air, and the deadly curtain of fire from well-coached batteries miles away would sweep every road with death. If in desperation he sought to attack he would do so ignorant whether he were not hurling his regiments against the strongest part of the Allied line, and with full knowledge of the fact that though he was blinded they had complete information of his strength and dispositions.
The argument impressed itself strongly upon the mind of the country. There appeared indeed no public sentiment hostile to it nor any organized opposition to the proposition for an enormous appropriation for purposes of aviation. The customary inertia of Congress delayed the actual appropriation for some months. But the President espoused its cause and the Secretaries both of War and the Navy warmly recommended it, although they united in opposing the proposition to establish a distinct department of aeronautics with a seat in the Cabinet. Being human neither one desired to let his share of this great new gift of power slip out of his hands. Leading in the fight for this legislation was Rear-Admiral Robert E. Peary, U. S. N., retired, the discoverer of the North Pole. Admiral Peary from the very outbreak of the war consecrated his time and his abilities to pushing the development of aeronautics in the United States. He was continually before Congressional committees urging the fullest appropriations for this purpose. In his first statement before the Senate Committee he declared that "in the immediate future the air service will be more important than the army and navy combined," and supported that statement by reference to utterances made by such British authorities as Mr. Balfour, Lord Charles Beresford, Lord Northcliffe, and Lord Montague. In an article published shortly after his appearance before the Senate Committee, the Admiral summarized in a popular way his views as to the possibility of meeting the submarine menace with aircraft, and what the United States might do in that respect. He wrote: