Adjt. Prince: Near the trenches is where the danger zone is, because there the German fighting machines are located.
Senator Kirby: How far was it from your battle front that you went?
Adjt. Rumsey: I think it was about 500 miles, 250 there and 250 back; it was between 200 and 250 miles there.
Senator Kirby: Beyond the battle front?
Adjt. Rumsey: Yes; or, to be more accurate, I think it was nearer 200 than 250.
The Chairman: What do you think of the function of the airplane as a determining factor?
Adjt. Prince: There is no doubt that if we could send over in huge waves a great number of these bomb-dropping machines, and simply lay the country waste—for instance, the big cities like Strassburg, Freiburg, and others—not only would the damage done be great, but I guess the popular opinion in Germany, everything being laid waste, would work very strongly in the minds of the public toward having peace. I do not think you could destroy an army, because you could not see them, but you could go to different stations; you could go to Strassburg, to Brussels, and places like that.
The Chairman: Then, sending them over in enormous numbers would also put out of business their airplanes, and they would be helpless, would they not?
Adjt. Prince: Absolutely. You not only have on the front a large number of bomb-dropping machines, but a large number of fighting machines. When the Somme battle was started in the morning the Germans knew, naturally, that the French and British were going to start the Somme drive, and they had up these Drachens, these observation balloons, and the first eighteen minutes that the battle started the French and the English, I think, got twenty-one "saucisse"; in other words, for the next five days there was not a single German who came anywhere near the lines, but the French and English could go ahead as they-felt like.
Admiral Peary: Have you any idea as to how many airplanes there are along that western front on the German side?