AERIAL ESCORTS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 60, 4 December 1917, Page 8

AERIAL ESCORTS

PROTECTING THE SHIPPING OF THE ALLIES

CAVALRY OF THE SEA

For the first time a journalist' has flown over the seas (says the "ExParis correspondent) contiguous to France and England successively on the jvings of a war eagle, otherwise a dirigible patrol balloon, and of a "war hawk"—that is, a scout hydroplane.

"The tiling that I most desire to accomplish (said the French Minister of Marine, in an interview) is to counteract the submarine warfare of the Germans and to'improve our methods of opposing it. The Germans realise now that their talk of starving Engand Franco is nonsense; that it cannot' be done. In fact, if you like to go and see how the convoying of our supply ships is already managed you may make a voyage in ouj dirigibles and waterplanes.." I went, and (proceeds the correspondent) am convinced.

Looking downward from an airship to-day a busy Channel port resembles a well-regulated railway station. Convoys of ships agoing up or down 1 the coast, bound for England or elsewhere, are seen to leave at regular hours, and the armed vessels which escort them before and behind may be likened to locomotives attached to ponderous trains, one at the head and the other in the rear.

Like Shepherd Dogs. Over this procession we were cru '®' ing at an altitude of from 50 to 300 yards, according to tho state of the weather, our machines hovering and varying their relative position from one side to the other, like shepherd dogs in cliargo of a flock. Sometimes the dirigible remains as much as eight or even twelve hours in the air convoying a ship or ships until on the horizon looms an aircraft from another station to relieve it and to take its own turn o£ duty. The hydroplanes may be fitly styled tho cavalry of the sea, making short reconnaissance's and being always ready to go. at a- moment's notice to any point where a submarine or a floating mine has been discovered. "I have just received a telephone order saying that a patrol will leave Havre at four o'clock," said the commander o! the station, "and if you wish von can take your place 011 board.. It was one of the big 5300 cubic metre dirigibles of the Zodiac type, with mitrailleuses- and wireless telegraphic apparatus. We were soon at an altitude of more than GOOft. The outer harbour struck us as most placi(. and peaceful in aspect as we gazed down upon it. The enormous wire nets, marked bv long lines of floating barrels and buoys, and which reach to the bottom of the sea, were pointed out to me. Openings 111 them here and there permit the passage of friendly sliiiw. „ The Germans know this as well "'Vt- W ere over the outer harhoiir at the exact time'when the convoy of ships which.,we were to escort was pa?sing through one of the gateways in the nets. It went straight out to soa and then took the northward course I sat immediately behind the pilot of our dirigible, and noted every manoeuvre while we followed our charge: the wireless apparatus was in constant operation, signalling all we saw that could be of any military significance. . nnfttt Suddenly, at an altitude of IOUUtt., while we were some fifty miles from land, the observation officer indicated a. certain obiect in the sea. The:airship was turned against the wind, reducing its speed until it became almost motionless, so that wo might make out what the object was. In tnafc tvb were not altogether successful.

A Suspicious Object. We saw under the muddy water the wake nr trade of sonietliin.fi that seemed to !)o moving - very slowly. A bomb was dropped, which evidently missed, but it enabled the commanding officer to correct his aim. Turning sharply a train we got ourselves, it seemed to me. exactly over the suspicious object, which wo "could hardly discern, and two other bombs' were dropped. They were engines of a new kind which are as effective as torpedoes. Wo proceeded 'on our way after giving warning of the incident by wireless. Immediately wo saw three small men-of-war spring out of the,distance where we had dropped tho bombs. Thus was demonstrated the > efficient character of the inter-communicationof [lie air and sea service between which the liaison is absolutely perfect. Another thing is certain. The next day the pilot of our airship was officially informed that a patrol boat which also had rushed to the spot in consequence of the wireless signals had fired five shells in the vicinity, indicating that she .had noted tho_ presence of a suspicious something in the sea. While we were in the middle of tho Channel wo picked up the signalling announcement that German aeroplanes were near us. We were about 4000 ft. up, and fortuitously a cloud enveloped us. We. did not emerge from it for ail hour and a half. The Gorman airship was not visible. It was nine hours after the time of our starting that we landed 011 a certain shore. _ We lin/1 travelled at the rate of eighty kilometres nnihour. We then mounted a 2700 cubic meter scout dirigible "Vedette." _ It carthroe men only. Its mission was to look for mines. After three hours, going at a sensibly greater speed, we landed near a town on the French coast. Thence I flew back to Havre in a naval hydroplane at 135 kilometres an hour. Wo aligWed at one point 011 the surface of the sea within a hundred yards of a supposed mine, whi.\i proved to be something else. H.'d it been a mine our armament would have been brought to bear upon it to destroy it.