Page:Air Service Boys over the Rhine.djvu/189



was a battle of the air and on the ground at the same time. From above the French, American and British airmen were dropping tons of explosives on the emplacements of the big guns and on the railway spurs that brought them to the firing points. It might seem an easy matter for an airship flying over a place to drop an explosive bomb on it and destroy it. But, on the contrary, it is very difficult.

The bombing plane must be constantly on the move, and it takes a pretty good eye to calculate the distance from a great height sufficiently well to make a direct hit.

But a certain percentage of the bombs find their mark, and they did in this case. Tom and Jack, as well as the other scouts, looking down from their planes, saw fountains of brown earth being tossed into the air as the French bombs exploded. At the same time the photographers in the other planes were making pictures of the guns and their location.

They were hindered in this not only by the shooting of the Germans from below, who Rh