IN THE AIR.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 24 July 1917, Page 2

IN THE AIR.

ALLIED AVIATORS' SUPREMACY

SAN FRANCISCO, June 28.

; Wing officers out with the British armies in the field in France are more than ever convinced feat the war will be decided in the air. For that reason news of the American project to build and man a huge sky armada has been enthusiastically received out there. According to a late cablegram from the front' to New York, "the airmen were agreed that the United States is capable of an enormous and rapid output of machines. Moreover, they hold Americans are naturally fit- ! ted to be tpp-noc-hers as flyers, only needing two or three weeks' actual battlefled experience to make headliners in the fighting game. "That the Germans are keenly alive to the importance of the air branch to military science is revealed in a report found on a German officer captured recently. It covered the period of the Somme battle. The report frankly admitted that the British and French hold the mastery of the air. The Germans, it was asserted, were unable to fly over the enemy lines, and German balloons were forced to remain hidden oh tlie ground. Thus, at the decisive moments in the fighting, the Germans' artillery was blinded, while the Prussian infantry was harassed by warplanes constantly swoopling low and machine-gunning the men in the trenches. NO ARTILLERY SUPPORT. I "The German helplessness," the report continued, "was aggravated by knowing that artillery was unable to support them. The document continued that the Allied flyers so outnumbered and out-manoeuvred the German airplanes that the latter were even unable to hold the air above their own artillery positions. The British and French machines constanly hovered overhead, dropping bombs or giving their own artillery accurate ranges. The German "report also admitted bases, ammunition depots, supply columns, cavalry supporting the troops, divisions in reserve—everything and everybody —harassed by the Allied airmen, often completely frustrating the defence at critical junctures. In short, the German report was a confession that an army is powerless unless something approaching equality is maintained In the air.

BLIND ENEMY GUNS

"Thus the experts with the British '.armies in Prance agree that with prompt action, America can throw the balance so completely to the Allies that the Prussian airmen will be unable to cross the lines from the sea to Switzerland —totally blinding the enemy and placing him at such a disadvantage that a decisive blow can be struck oo the ground. "Other German data recently taken admits the Allies outnumbered the Germans in aeroplanes by ten to one, in the battle of the Somme. This ratio, Allied airmen agree, ought to be maintained hereafter. "The Germans evidently have an inkling of what the future has in store for them . They are straining every means to increase the aeroplane output. S.o hastily are their machines built nowadays that they tend to fall to pieces as soon as the strain of ac- ■ robatics is put upon them. And acrobatics are now essential to' aerial fighting. If America strikes while the iron is hot, Germany will be driven from the sky."