New Britain Herald Newspaper, October 16, 1918, Page 8

NEW BKITAIN DAILY T WEDNESDAY, {IRALD, BEI* OCTO HOW Told by Brigadier General Charles Frederick (“Falling Leaf”) Lee, 30-Year Old Chief of the British Aviation Mission to: the U. Brigadier General Charles Fred-|goes out w rh‘ oy erick Lee, Chief of the Brihlrh'\(’“}“fl"l:“:“:{‘)‘;’vl‘v ' dviation Mission now in the United ‘ e States, has written the following | They erticle. True to the tenets of the Royal Air Force, he says every- thing about the service but mot one word about himself. He is already o faomiliar figure to many Ameri- can audiences. He and his staff form part of the so-called “fiving eircur,” which jowrneys through the air from city to city in America, | end not only enthyalls hundreds of | thousands of spectators with its feats but makes an equally .ftmng to the public intelligence when the British General himself ascends the platform and tells h;“, Fearers in simple, soldierly speech, | the secrets and achievements of the fiving men. General Lee says 'fl_:a! ke likes flying better than writing | or steech-making, but that he is an | in all three can be tr:tifird‘ v a great many people in all| of America. He is a young| swan to have attained such eminence in profession, for he was born in Vorkshire on July >nd, 1887.! His career is exclusively that of the | eriny. He was educated at Eton and the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, served in a famous old vegiment, the Goth Rifles, passed the inevitable four years in Imii._'x, end helped to strafe the Boche in Wrance in 1914 and I1915. He | garned his Army soubriguet, “Fall- Wng Leaf” Lee, by reasont of an ex- | $raordinary manoeuvre he evolved B air fighting. Be it remembered | ¢hat he has twenty-nine German wirplanes and the occupants to his wredit, and many of the men he has lent crashing to earth must have ' Been experienced pilots, so, in or- der to come unscathed through so wmany combats, he is evh‘defltly an wirman of great daring ond inexr- | Jhaustible rvesource. One of his ‘Bricks was to fall like a fluttering 'Beof, in @ machine apparently out w/ control, but really tempting on undertoke The cessary co: guns until tk Those dt height from 5.0 less to say, the alove. appeal shoots under on the Fro A. “4 OK.s; Vire pondnt to close quarters and con- | weguent wundoing. He is immensely lar, not only with the general| ic, but with his brother offi-| {iwers dm both the British and Amer- | Abean Armies, and every aord he has | \Mo say may be regarded as the out- lwowe of a wide experience guided By proved theories. ander handy as a fighter or a scout. it has to be prot pilot and observer. Be- lhese officers ar. batte ite programme to carry out. shoots on definite targets to results of the shooting are communicated to the wireless, and the ne- by performed at any 6,000 feet. Need- e is of quite a 00 t m; different tvpe from machines for other t nor so Hence ted by scouts flying so fast Soume TrHINGS AR Mex Do May I give you an example of three en by pilots and observ- nt? two gun pits destroyed, SCEN into its technical details. But to-day . |there are hundreds of machines equip- with wireless and co-operating v with the Artillery, Infant and Our work with Infantry, Cay- is also of the gri n of signals d | Cavalry lalry, and |importnce. E s |vised as between the Infantry and the | aeroplane, and the aeroplanc flies |tremely low to get these messages, fly |back, and give the Commander accurate ex- be in nded of. Perhaps they may be short of ammunition or grenades. All this has to be communicated quickly if the material is to be brought forward in good time. For Cavalry and Tanks AEROPLANES SAVE LiFE As 1 began by saying, Flying is de- signed to save life. Take, for instance, a machine which flies at a height rang- TS N PDITICLY the aeroplane is both an eve and an ear. | GREAT BRITAIN FIGHT [life Dy an efficient Air Force is abso- lutely colossal The ae realm of r descend from the occupied in the its practica - nd B as ould be look: |public form. It | chine des the purpose is to help those on t 1 on as a n man through ir for a definite purpose 1 {to go forward Tue LiFe or A FLYER |information not only as to where the In- | fantry is, but also as to what they may | We have to rid ourselves of mistaken notio The life of a pilot is really |far more comfortable than is possible for his comrades in the Infantry, Cav- alry, or Artillery. The Infantry when in the trenches are shelled continually and often heavily. They have to sleep in dugouts, some wet, and some dry. They are at War the whole time, ex- cept, of course, when they are back at rest. But the pilot, though his period of fighting may continue for weeks and months at a time, has a definite job to R.AF GIANT MACHINE RELDY 70 S7ER7T ON GERNIAN BOI7ENG LE=XRED/I720Y e RITISH gFFlclAl—— PHOTOS- fi |but praise for American fliers, and |those at home have nothing but praise {for the cadets there. And how im- |portant a thorough training is! How- lever well a pilot may fly, however good s he can kill s, to all in- To do 1se a prepon- his machine may be, unl | his opponent in the air, tents and |that he must have a gun, | d of fire, out-manoeuvre his |enemy, and bring him down. There |are several means and ways of achiev- ling this excellent result. Some Ger- mans have been forced to land without |having been fired on: others have been |brought down by machine-gun fire in |the air, and a few by anti-aircraft fire |from the ground. Again, a very small | number has been shot down by infantry |gun-fire from trenches. The more Ger- mans brought dowm, the less sacrifices of life we have on our side of the lines. Say a German airplane has come over our side of the lines; say he has taken photographs of our artillery position ; purposes, useless erance IN R Meead THE when, as they thought, Great Britain |would be too much occupied with her own affairs to bother about the affairs of other people. They thought their system of systematic terrorism would | frighten people out of the war. They thought their atrocities in Belgium, now proven to be systematic, would so frighten other nations that they would keep out of the war and let the German bully in the shape of autocracy go where he wanted to. They have had one to two rude shocks sincc then. The |latest and greatest was when Asmerica (came into this war. (I would like to |harp on this theme, but must keep to |my story.) AemiAL Gunwery THE Ky With the airman came the air-gmn- ner. In 1914 and the early part of 1915 pilots and observers carried rifles, and the pilots, at that time, sat behind. | There were no machine guns on air- |planes. Men undoubtedly fought in the STER2N FRONT “The Alflies have been fighting the Hun Bor over four years, and the British | Ewpire has sustained 2,500,000 casual- #ies, yet, contrary to general opinion, the greatest lifesaver in the present W¥ar i3 the acroplane. Without the mecroplane casualtics increase by leaps wnd bounds. With the acroplane and i supremacy in the air the casualties o our zide of the line decrease and the | mmorale increzses, whereas the casualties wo the Hun side of the line increase and ‘@b morale decreases with marked “tere is po doubt whatever ‘that on . V/estern Front we bave a definite, mimost an overwhelming, superiority in ‘Wb 2ir. It is this superiority in the air twhich enables us to bomb Germany and Briog the War home to her, and makes & possible for an offensive to succeed. Bo offensive can hope for success with- ®ul go-operation between all arms and #he most implicit trust in the Aviation Bervice by leaders and men alike, Are Sexvice Is Srecavizen Wfechines have developed along defi- mite lines for defmite purposes. In the ®lden deys any machine was used for say duty. In those days it was only {Mecessary for a pilot to fly u machine Bnd have an elementary knowledge of matters. Nowadays anyone can to fly—that u the casiest part part comes A pilot has to be and fight in small single- .lfll to be taught, on lines, the art of bomb- fng, and last, he has to be taught co. ®pcration with other arms. This last duty is ome of the most difficult to teach wmad pechaps the most important of all. The Commanders of the Infantry wad Artillery, either in an attack or a ¥etreat, are often unaware of the moye.- wmeits in their own command, owing to Bhe cntting of the telephone wires and e ever<hanging situation, Runners in one of v, caused” ( B. “Flight 6-in. Howitzry on wire, whicj stroyed.” (No. € €50 154! served 22 minu in % m tes. Fir, fire and Pposition,” These record explo with artillery jtell the vast an has taken place of as corms explosions in the ta, nished way, give the server are efficient, p NEWLY ZEFor e explosion was 5 Squadron.) lasting 434 hours; 382 rounds fired in a shoot h was completely de- 2 Squadron.) Howitzer rounds ob- inutes and 31 others in e for effect good. Three rget position, and a sion in a neighboring cold ané unvar- results of work It does not, however, lount of training which before the pilot and ob- or the evolution 1sed in an a CAPTUREL Grepms NEPR 7rs .l 400 feet, and searches for information which is in- valuable to the Commander of the sector in which an attack is going to take place, It. is up to the pilot of an aeroplane to discover if the batteries are active or if they are only camouflaged make-believe. If he can transmit the facts to the Artillery Commander, in the ore case he can have the battery prevectad from shelling in the e of a camoufi; Isave the Battery Comn of firing at it. /‘{0/7/46////%5‘ AT 2 g belwe cur troops, ang ! ed log he can r the \muue,‘ ) On the same fnes it is| {the duty of the pi'ol to see where the | itrench mortars are, in order *hat she imay be kmocked out before the at | begins, 25 weil ~ machite gu il tack n em- I destrayed and !proud to be in the Air Division. A cer- X A FA/0US S OESERVER I/ THE THREL MACHINES QUADRON . EVERY //LO07 AND CROYP HAS BROUENT DOWN AT LE3ST ! YNNG do each day. He knows, when that job is over, he will return to a clean house, ia clean meal, and a clean bed. His jmaralu is excellent. He is flying the |best machine the Government can sup- Ply. He does not see the dirty side of Ithe War. He does not find in the air the gas and th= filth of the ground. It is not to be wondered at that he is tain type of person writes on the dan- gers of flying and the way he prevented himseif from being killed, vet one-tenth of the untold stories in the trenches would make the air-pilot’s story sound very small. Yet the airman is all-im- portant. It would not matter if Amer- ica sent ten millions of men to France onE OF 7HE L& say he has photographed trenches where we are assembling to attack—it is per- fectly easy for him, if not interfered with, to take these back, have them de veloped, and issued to the urtiliery. He can also call up batteries by wire- less and have them train their guns on the infantry so assembled. Hence, it is | absolutely necessary that every hostile machine on our side of the lines, every enemy machine in the air at all, shall be brought down whenever and wher. ever possible. Only by this means can we save our own men on the ground, and eventually make the German Gov- ernment realize that they cannot ride rough-shod over every nation in the world LONTES LU, oV air, but these scraps generally resulted in two machines manoeuvering around each other and occasionally getting in a |ters in France. {other was forced to land for lack of | gasoline. could put in a shot that would either disable the pilot or knock out the ma- chine. Not until the Lewis gun did aerial gunnery really be- {gin to make itself felt. TN LIVES present moment by large machines. flying has become the fas now possible for machines mation through the clou above them and continue that formation!' on a compass bearing to their obj come down through the clouds, their ob; home. simple trained for it, an struments. AIR S. Lewis*Gun motinted ower the-top plag and at the same time we developed ring mounting in the observer's co It thus became @ race not oaly in chines but also in gunmery as to wi could bring the most effective fire bear on the aduersary. In the auturd of 1915, expetinients were made wi the Vickers Gua firing through the pi] peller. The blades were protected steel plates called deflectors, which wel s0 placed that witen a ballet struck blade it glanced off No form synchronizer gear had then been evol <d, but it was the beginning of a systd jwhich is now umivesal Late in 19 the Fokker made is appearance. machine had not a great speed, but did have a synchromizing gear, & e, gear which enabled the machine gun fire through the blades of the propell without hitting the blades and withp any loss of efficency. It had quite success for a time until the French out the Spad gear and the British ff Vickers gear. The latter was used us quite extensively over the lives, b owing to the difficnlty of training m chanics in its use, and the small amou that was known of it in those days, left quite 2 lot to be desired. This w followed by the Constantinesco ged which proved very satisfa ctory. He then, was a definite progress in aerif gunnery, and to-day we have on eved) machihe two or three or four machid guns, two firing through the propelle] and two being used by the observer b hind. In the case of a two-seater, you consider the amount of rownd which can be fired on the frof a machine, you will understand what menace it is. You can fire 600 round per minute from each gun; hence tH pilot can fire 1,200 rounds per minu and the observer can reach the figure with his two guns. MANY DorrerENtT MAcHINES Machmes‘ of course, are specializ There are single-seater machines, whiq depend entirely on their power of . ocuvre and gunfire. There are twd seater fighters where the pilot and off server have to work together the whol time. There are machines designed fq co-operation with Artillery which cs an observer and wireless. There large machines for day bombing an| still larger machines designed for nig g. Owing to the pace at wh e sighting o i hit an object i going 120 miles an” hour, whee 20 own machine is tra: n hour, when 2 wvelling at the pace, requires a vast for pil gunnery continuousfy they go on the nd school until thy g0 overseas. In the matter of sighid perhaps the most noteworthy dcveT ment was a compensated fore-sig] which allowed automatically for speed of your own machine, buf most valuable adjunct to :!'r fi:h was the Tracer bullet, a bullet neithes explosive nor ing, but which leave: a phosphorescent trail. You can see if yznr gnllm are going the you want, and are enteri; machin aimed at. i Crour Foxwation Frymwg An extremely interes ing has been, perfected Mo ony fu;ma;.‘ion lfl ingél n the olden and ontil most cently, pilotxs l';a\?:' been chary o oing into clouds except as a means o ficfense. Actual dourr flying has been] regarded with a certain amount of] skepticism. But cloud flying to-day ig] a necessity. With the figh stil progress over French and Belgian it is obvious that we must make th Boche realize what #t will mean whes we get on his land. The old maxim of cutting the enem communications is only possible at Ll r the air, and we can reach him in the air now with om We can give him war will be when from the ti foretaste of what are in German territory. We can m: it exceedingly hard for him to feed hi: troops in the field. in the world we can make it still hardes By the best method for him to maintain the output of his factories—by destroying them. Every day is not a fine d: , and clond mmn. : I; i go in for dé and me ective, | wn bombs ;Igctwe. £0 up again and come, hat sounds simple, but it i ooly if pilots are properly) have the right ine RAmING GEaMany Now Long-distance air raids into Germang. are now quite common. An indepens! dent Force of the R. A. F. has formed for this purpose alone. independent of the army, and carries’ out bomb raids only from its headquare cen | It is he following figures Sometimes one machine or the |may be of interest: Max. miles behind lines Date. which could 1914 1916. 1917. 1918. (Handley-Page, night only) . (Day, De Haviland, 9)+e... It was extremely lucky if you advent of the| These handy TRt e etus e tas o o L ADOUt SI20 About Load Tbe, (bombs) * cecemmscinsaneasae. About 50 cecsceceeicananecs. About 100 . 200 sseess. About 1,800 200 «ee. About 400 In the autumn of this year we shall be reached. 70 carry roughly 800 pounds 100 miles far« ther, amount twice as far. and next year cight times thay I would like to write something abou$' !zerial photography, that most usef: adjunct of the work of the Gen eroplane, H is : .t Ca i z : Y Loy jPlacemeats which ausc snch havoe to Stati. but considerations of space fore m2y bzf killed, telephones may be put out | of action, and the much-needed news | not get back. s |that the matter Co-operation by the Artillery and the roplane 3 e in 1914 not efficient. uf:lrs\ Was considered a sort of black art in those days. It was not untii 19: % 7 was reall; and evolved. Its strides by Machines : ecame rapi instruments were im»“ was | y developed ve not heen previ- | tleat, it jan atack i ¢ jousiy dealt o enti; Lazt, hut n : il to koow if (he wire in front [ the Germau trenches : een cut efficiently. Tf it has beer, all is well. i it is neorssary for the Artillery o again strafe i, in order that an Infaniry Regiment may a6t start an attack only to up of a certain m : ngland. if there was not an efficient Air Service | back of them Fortunately, going well. The United States has pilots of the right | kind, and the material is now going overseas in the right way. T have been fortunate enough to see a good deal of American flying men, of the training which is going on i this country, and umber of American cadets I8 T hie things are Is GERMANY “ErFIcieEnt?* People have talked a lot of German efficiency and intelligence. Yet what can we think of an efficiency which has been training for over thirty years to destroy two nations when least pre- pared? Aud Germany could not even do that! The Huns chosc 2 time when they were ready and Belgium and _ They. s |little weapons were mounted on swivel- {pins on each side of the machine, and icut down to decrease weight. This, |however, though the beginning, was |never satisfactory, and the pages in‘ | the machine gun were frequent. Jn the | middle of 1915, the German Aviatik had a single movable gun i the rear cockpit | which caused quitc a Jot of trouble o the Allies. This was foilowed bYEfi bid. people of America the vital importance of the air force, both offensive and des fensive. jized in very few words. Send ova your Liberty engines in thousand 2 Send over your bright young Americagl fliers in tens of thousands, I have endeavored to show to the My message can be summare the end®? and o ngd. 4 Hon il