Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1914-09-17
E0oz RRaW A12QAEANFne 5000

water, but also from the air, steps must and
should be taken to muster an air fleet absolutely
second to none either hemisphere"
The reason for the selection in the Hay bill
of the army for the first experiment is because
the army is at present far behind the navy in
attention to aviation and in the success attained
by its corps. This is due to the fact that the
army has been very much hampered by lack of
sufficient funds and by the failure of congress to
designate any single branch of the service as an
aviation corps, placing the burden Of the air work
OF the Signal corps.
The navy, On the contrary, has for some time
possessed an aviation corps which has done spen-
did work The recent movement Of the base of
this corps from Annapolis Md, to Pensacola, Fla.
has given the navy additional opportunity for ex-
cellent work.
When the fleet was ordered to Vera Cruz the
battleship Mississippi, which acted the home
station of the hydros, sent south with the
other fighting units of the navy and the work
of the navy's aeroplanes in the neighborhood of
Vera Cruz was the subject of more than one
complimentary message from Rear Admiral
Fletcher.
The army sent aeropanes to Mexico for
very good reason-it had none to send that could
do the work demanded Of them.
The army's feet of aeropanes is divided into
four sections, one at Galveston, Tex; one at San
Diego, Cal; one in the Hawaiian islands and
one in the Philippines. These military aero
planes out OF date in the sense that they are
capable of being used only for scouting purposes
and not fitted for either defensive Of
fensive purposes.
In the event of an invasion of Mexico the army
aeroplanes at present in use would be invaluable
for use in determining the position and number
of the enemy's forces But when it came to
active participation in battle they would be
practically useless, while the majority of the
European air corps are fitted up with special
rife rests, ammunition carriers and munitions of
war in order to repuse attack from above or to
offer fight to forces on the ground.
I'VE must start by perfecting our scouting sys-
tenn" is the opinion of Col Samuel Reber, who is
in charge of the present aviation squad "as
child first learns to crawl After that he may
take up walking and then running. In the case
of aviation running means we will have a fully
equipped fleet of offensive airships-our actions
will probably consist of anything but running in
the literal meaning of the word
The advantage of the aeroplane for scouting
purposes can hardly be overestimated. The mill
tary pilot seated five hundred or a thousand feet
in the air is able to points of vantage and to
catch glimpses of on the ground which
would be entirely invisible either to the COM
mander or to his scouts on the level The num-
Der in any one detachment could be ascertained
with a surprising degree of accuracy by a pilot
veTsed in the art of and the information
which he brings back to earth would be invalua-
bic to the commander planning his campaign for
the next hour
We have succeeded in bringing our aviation
scouting operations to such degree of success
that the time is entirely ripe for the next step in
the logical sequence-the establishment of
separate aviation corps which will be powerful
enough to defend itself if attacked or to give bat
tie to small bodies of men on the ground in addi-
ton to making the highly important and in
mensey valuable surveys of the territory in front
of the advancing army
The Hay bill provides for the creation Of IAN
aviation corps which shall be a part of the line