The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-11-07


 stopped in that immediate section. It is all matter of wrist watches, of speed, team play and of seconds
 With the first flush of dawn the birds
 of war had come from their aerodromes The shell fire and the planes were all that the onlooker might see.
 q should think that we had eight
 planes that day to one of the Ger
 mans said an aviator. We had con- centrated planes as we'll as gunsn Only when the secret of the point of concentration is kept can such an attack succeed against a modern de- fensive position. The Germans had learned that the British were prepar- ing an attack, for their soldiers called out from their trenches to the Brit ish: When are you coming?'' to which one Briton replied:. I'll let you know as soon as Sir John French tells me-" Attacks were made that morning at several places, but the Germane ex- pected the real attack elsewhere than Loos.
 There has been good deal of talk, said staff officer, ito the effect that the element of surprise has disappeared
 from war. It is as vital as it ever was Only concealment was never so diffi- cult"
 Troops and guns had to be moved at night when the German planes might not note the concentration. British planes must ward off German planes by day
 Infinite labor and pains in detail are required of hundreds of thousands of men for such an attack. That of the medical corps alone is stupendous. On the morning of the attack beds were ,, ready, and the countless ambulances and the clearing stations and all the intricate organization for caring for the wounded ready
 Planes Over German Trenches
 As the attack proceeded a veritable
 flock of planes was cutting circles and
 dipping and turning over the battle field as if in an exhibition of airman-
 ship. They appeared tt be discon-
 nected with the battle; but no par ticipant was more busy or intent than they. All the panorama of action was
 beneath him; they alone could really 'see" the battle if they chose.s But each aviator stole only passing was intent on his part which was to
 keep watch of whether the shells of the battery to which he reported were on the target or not.
 To distinguish whose shell burst was whose in the midst of that cloud of dust and smoke over the German positions seemed as difficult as to sep arate the spout of steam from one pipe from another when a hundred were making wall of vapor.
 Every youth in England apparent ly wants to get into the aerial sery- ice. So the corps has it's pick. Pro- motion is rapid; the romance and the excitement of the work appeal. It is easy to learn to fly in the very stable Ia tac of iah saying goes, are "foolproof." It takes only two months to train man with aptitude to do the routine work of reconnaissance. But he must be young Men do not learn readily after they are 30. with few exceptions and they are very poor pupils indeed after they are 35. It is not difficult to spot shells when only a few batteries are firing, but when perhaps hundred guns are dropping shells on a ha1f-mile front of trench highly trained eye is re- quired. Occasionally a plane was ob- served to slip down like a hawk which had located fish in the water. At all hazards that intrepid aviator was going to identify the shell bursts of l the batteries which he represented The Germans might have him in rifle range but they were too busy trying | to hold back the English infantry to | fire at him.
 | Other planes were dropping smells on ! railroad trains and bridges, to hinder the Germans once they had learned where the force of the attack was to | be exerted from rushing reinforce 1 ments to the spot. For that kind of work as for all long reconnaisances | the aviators like low-lying clouds They | clip down out of these to have a look around and drop bomb and then rise | to cover before the Germans can bring l their anti-aircraft guns to bear 1 The first thing was to hold what was taken in this advance. All the labor of turning the wrecked German into British trenches, of making new dugouts, traverses and parapets and laying out barbed wire had to be done before the German concentrating | swept back in counter attack which was expected and which came. A Mag ara of German gunfire added to that of the British announces another German effort.
 1 So far the British have held their new positions: and when the Germans were attacking in one part of the line ! the British repulsed the German at tack and took 500 yards from the Ger mans in an adjacent part.