Page:Jack Heaton, Wireless Operator (Collins, 1919).djvu/254

 the airplane comes close enough to see the panels he knows that we want him to designate, that is to name the target which the battery is to fire at. This he sends to us by wireless and our operators write it down.

While our detail was setting up the wireless apparatus, the telephone detail from our outfit had run a wire line from our B. C. station to the batteries which are several hundred yards ahead of us. When our operators get the target, or pin-point as it is called, from the observer in the airplane, he (the operator) phones it to the battery commander who orders the guns set for it.

The airplane then signals down to us in code and asks “is the battery ready?” The telephone man tells us that the battery is ready and the panelmen put out No. 5, which means “the battery is ready.” The airplane observer sends down “fire,” our operators yell the order to the telephone man who in turn shouts it into the mouthpiece of his ’phone; the ’phone operator at the battery end informs the Battery Commander and he gives the order when the guns are fired either by piece, that is one at a time, or by salvo, which is all at once.