BOMBING RAIDS

Evening Star, Issue 16626, 8 January 1918, Page 4

BOMBING RAIDS

HOW THEY ARE CARRIED OUT. [By C. G. Grey, editor of the ’ Aero plane.’] Probably the average man, when he thinks of bomb raids .by aeroplanes, has a vision of a host of machines sailing over the doomed town, of bomb-droppers signalling to their pilots the direction in which they are required to go ( and of the said bomb-droppers then squinting along sights like ordinary gun sights, and pressing the trigger of the bomb release gear when' the sights come on, just as a naval gunner fives when the ship rolls to the right point. After which, the average man imagines that the bomb hits its mark with unerring accuracy. He takes no account of the inaccuracy of bombs falling through the air, nor of all the preliminary trouble and organisation required to make the raid a success, such as some of our raids on German aerodromes in Belgium have been. Actually, the mere dropping of the bombs is the simplest and easiest part of the whole performance. It is, of course, easy enough for a bombing squadron to fly over a town, either in daylight or dark, and simply unload their bombs haphazard into the middle of it, as the German raiders have been doing lately. That needs no particular skill. The only organisation then needed is that necessary to collect the raiding machines at the starting point, and send them off as quickly a« possible one after the other, so that there may be no need for the first away to hang around the sky waiting for the others to come aloft and get into position for the proper “ squadron formation.” The organisation of a bombing raid on an aerodrome or a harbor, say, where the target is. very small, if one is to hit anything that matters at all, is a very different matter, and calls for great patience, skill, and judgment. In these raids accuracy of aim is of iho greatest importance, as may well be imagined. THE FIRST PHOTOS. The first thing to be done in such a raid is to secure really good photographs of the place to be bombed. In a town a rough map of the place is good enough, and probably the Intelligence Department of every country in Europe possessed maps of every respectable town m every other country long before the war. But aerodromes and, harbors are a different affair. Before the war aerodromes were just big fields. Harbors were the came shape as now, but maps showing the buildings were not published broadcast, and since the war all harbors ‘ have been much altered bv the erection of new buildings, jetties, quays, and so forth. Therefore, first of all, special aeroplanes, fitted with very fine cameras, aro sent out to photograph the place from above. Generally these photographing machines are very fast and powerful, for they have to be able to outpace the enemv’s defence machines, and have to be diflic'ult for the anti-aircraft gunners to hit. Also, very often, they have to come down quite low to get a good photograph, and thev need to climb fast to get out of gun range as soon as their work is done. OUR REAL OBJECTIVES.

When the photographs have been taken ■and it is necessary to take a large number so as to cover as much.ground as possible—the plates or films are brought back to headquarters, where they are developed, and prints taken from them, These prints have to be reduced or enlarged, as the case may bo, so that they all come out the same size. After which they -are stuck together so as to make an exact photograph may of that section of the place which it is desirable to map out, so as to show the bombers what to nit and what to avoid. For example, in bombing German aerodromes in Belgium or France our aviators wish, above all things, to avoid hitting towns or villages in the vicinity of the aerodromes, for the inhabitants (if these places are. our Allies, although under the heel of the Hun. Also they wish to avoid hitting the open aerodrome, and thus wasting their bombs. All they want to hit are the sheds themselves, which are really quite small things disposed in a long tow along one side of the aerodrome! Therefore it is most important to get photographs showing exactly the position of those sheds in relation to the nearest roads and villages and rivers and ponds, which provide landmarks easily recognised from a great height, or probably, owing to the special coloring of the sheds, or owing to their being disguised by houghs of trees, or by some other concealment coming under the head of what is now commonly called camouflage,” the sheds themselves may be almost nr quite invisible from' a height, so it may be necessary to drop the bombs where the sheds are known to be, rather than where they are seen to he. In attacking a harbor, such as Z<vhrugge, for example, it is necessary to take photographs of the place constantly beforehand, so as to find out whether any suspicions alterations are being made in the arrangement of the- place, and whether S,!I P S . or submarines are in the habit of at certain spots, or whether they have shifted their moorings. In this way it is possible to learn where the, storehouses arc from which they draw their food or ammunition, and which are merely dummy or empty stores. _ All kinds of telltale information is obtained in this way. Then, after the raid is over, it is necessary for more photographs to bo token, snowing exactly the same places after the bombs have fallen, so that the amount of damage and the accuracy of the bombdropping may bo observed. I know of one instance in which, after a big daylight raid on a Gorman city, the French officer commanding (,ho raidem started some 10 or 20 minutes or so after the rest, and on reaching the city calmly descended to a few hundred feet over the roofs and took photographs at close range of the damaged 01 but mug buildings. It wasi a daring thing to do, and worth while perhaps in special instances, but as a rule photopaplis taken with special lenses from a height of many thousands of feet give ail the information required, as to the damage done and the accuracy of the bombers. It is just as well to realise that as a bomb is merely dropped, and is not shot at a mark like a shell from a gun, and ss the machine from which it is dropped is itself moving through the air about twice as fast as a fast railway train, bombdropping cannot he expected to lie absolutely accurate. Just try dropping anything out of a railway carriage window so that, it will fall onoosite any desired spot which, you are approaching, and you will see what I mean. Of course, you must be careful to obey the injunction “ not to throw out of the window bottles or other articles likely to injure men workiiig on the line,” but if you make sure there are no men. just ahead you will be able to try it. i When a bomb is first dropped it carries on forwards at the same speed as the aeroplane, but, the resistance of the air through which it is passing gradually slows it down, so that if it is dropped from a very great height it will be falling absolutely vertically for the last part of ita journey. Thus its path is curved, and the shape of the curve varies according to th« height and speed of the aeroplane; sc that one can easily understand why homhi meant for railways sometimes hit hospitals, or the oilier way round, as the case may, bo.