DAYLIGHT AIR RAIDS

Evening Post, Volume XCIV, Issue 40, 16 August 1917, Page 10

DAYLIGHT AIR RAIDS

BRITISH AND HUN METHODS.

COMPARED.

The Hun method of carrying out a daylight "formation raid," as shown on the last three occasions, suggests some interesting comparisons between his fly ing service and those of the Allies. The two parties are radically different (wrote a British airman in the Daily News), the cause lying probably in the naiture of the Hun pilot. Whatever his aeroplane and engine <iesigners may do for him, he remains strangely unenterprising. You hav<s a large formation of machines —a plan copied from the Allies, but at least 18 months after them. Instead of the human element, the swoop, down 'to 1000 ft or 500 ft, commonly employed by the Allies to ensure direct' hits, you ha-/e a hurried attack from an enormous height with reliance for accurate shooting placed in! bomb sights, which are not and never can be reliable.

One can just imagine the Hun sitting up there at 15,000 ft or 18,000 ft, stopwatch and levor ready, his eye glued to tho sights. Ono can imagine him pulling the lever and feeling suro something "frightful" must have happened. But that is not how Allied raids are done, nor how aerial success is gained. One sentence will illuminate the whole. After one highly successful Allied excursion, where real military objects and not merely "moral" ones were achieved, I heard a British pilot say, "Did you use your bomb sight? I tried to use mine, but did not feel confident, 30 I just came down to 500 ft and looked down between my legs and pulled. It hit all right!" HUN CAUTION. Had Folkestone Harbour been hit in the first of these raids no doubt the result would have been of "military value," but it was not, and it was not likely to 'be from that height. We do not know how many, machines tried for it, but none of the fifteen sent out brought it off. The samo language seems to apply to the other two raids.

We know what advertisement these Hun raids will receive at home, but compare the almost, sometimes entirely, unmentioned "shows" which have at times been a daily feature of Allied aittack. They are carried much farther across ithe lines, and they scarcely ever fail to bring a.bout th« total demolition of some object the loss of which is of serious sooount to the Hun.

The casualties among- the Allied pilots are heavy, but the results are obtained. In these raids the Hun has, as usual, endeavoured to obtain rtialti vikheut taking risks. In air-work the two are incompatible—and he has had the casualties just the same.

The truth of the matter is that the Hun pilot is a "hero" whom a certain amount of time automatically covers with medals. Despite the fact that Allied flying has been the key of all Hun failure right through the war, he never seems to have got away from this idea that his pilots are "heroes" -who are already doing more than ctuld have been expected.

The point of view of the Allies is strikingly opposite. They have m«- yet begun to envisage the -ultimate uses of the aeroplane. For one thing, Allied audacity is continually suggesting new possibilities.