Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 92.djvu/524

 The Eyes in the Air

All aboard for a reconnaissance flight over the German lines By Aviator Henry Bruno

Late Imperial Royal Flying Corps, Canada

��IN the British Flying Corps there are two kinds of air reconnaissance work — Corps and Army. Corps reconnais- sance is carried out by a single airplane and army reconnaissance by squadrons of machines numbering not less than five and as many as thirty. To understand just what a Corps reconnaissance flight means it will be necessary for me to trans- port you to an active section of the West- tern battlefront during the summer.

A two-gun, two-seater Sopwith fighter is trundled out of a hangar. While the pilot is inspecting the map of the territory over which he is to fly, the observer receives his orders to get infor- mation on the move- ment of enemy troops, motor transports, trains and the direction in which they are going, over an area of not more than ten thousand yards in front of the allied position. A du- plicate of the pilot's map and writing ma- terials are ready in the observer's seat.

As the final order is given, the plane ascends and wings its way over the lines towards the enemy. The pilot climbs rapidly, keeping a wary eye open for enemy ai'--raiding squadrons. The usual height at which he operates is from six thousand to ten thousand feet.

Hearing the German lines the observer eagerly scans the ground below through powerful glasses. If you were to look through these same glasses you would see mile after mile of shell-marked earth - every mile seemingly the same as the next. But to the observer every foot of that ground holds information worth noting, information which he is willing to give his life to get. The pilot doesn't linger over the battlelines. His work is still to be done back of the enemy's trenches.

Far below the plane is a thin wisp of white smoke. To the uninitiated it

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��means nothing; but the men in the plane know that it is a train winding towards the front. Its position is quickly marked on the map.

What's That Cloud of Dust?

A white road next occupies their atten- tion. The pilot drops the plane a little — utterly oblivious to the anti-aircraft shells bursting around him. One part of the road is obscured by a black smudge and a cloud of dust. A regiment of in- fantry is on the march. Why infantry and not cavalry? The dust cloud tells. It would hang in the rear of cavalry and the men and horses would look like black specks. It is such deductive reasoning as this that an observer has to be trained to make.

The observer esti- mates the number of troops by figuring what space they occupy. A little further on, three black specks move rap- idly down the road. Motor trucks in a hurry. All this is recorded by the watch- ful observer who becomes more keen as the minutes pass.

The plane is over a railroad station now. Are there any parked motors? How many cars are on t-the rails? Several work- ing parties below run for cover when the plane hovers over them. Evidently this is an important depot as seven "archies" hurl shells skyward in an effort to scare the aerial visitor away. A shell bursts near by. The plane rocks from the ex- plosion. Then, as the pilot shuts off the motor, the machine dashes earthward in a nosedive. Nol he is not hit. The ob- server just wants a closer view of the depot. Nearer and nearer the plane swoops, with machine-guns from the ground adding to the din from the anti- aircraft guns. Five hundred feet from his objective he flattens out, opens up the

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