The Washington herald., 1918-01-19
CAMERA BOYS
GREAT ASSETS /.
FOR AVIATION
Air Service Men Prove Of
Wonderful Held to
the Army.
ny c. c. LYON.

The washington Herald Reporter Who
Went to France With Pershings
Army,
With the American Army IN France,
Jan. E.-"After ALL" declared an ofh-
Ger Of aviation, ''the primary and
most important object Of an air SER
vice Is to find out what IL going on
behind the enerny's lines.
Most of the army headquarters
nowadays insist on exact information.
They're no longer content with ver-
bal reports from the aviators. They
insist on photographs.
/. Thus, there has been opened up, over
there. a great field for photograph
ers.
Not, of course, the kind Of photog-
rapheFs who tell you to look pleasant
and then snap you as You wear II
swallowed the canary" expression and
your best Sunday go-to-meeting
clothes.
sky Camera Men.
A vital need on every battle front is
expert aerial photographers
I'VE need men," continued the avia-
ton officer, whom we can send two
or three miles up into the sky and who
will bring back what they are sent
AFTER
The most successful aerial photog-
raphers with the allied armies are, for
the most part. young fellows who were
studio or outdoor photographers before
they went IN for aviation.
They're not only able to operate a
"sky camera" with almost unfailing
accuracy but. at the same time, they're
able to handle a machine gun when a
Boche avion comes up to interfere with
their work Of taking pictures.
And, then, IL they get back to their
stations alive, they're able, with light
ming rapidity, to develop their films
and make prints.
American newspaper photographers
like to think they're about the speediest
mortals in shoe leather.
Prepared for Any Orders.
Consider the aerial photographer.
Assume that an American city edi-
tor calls in his staff photographer and
says to him:
Joe. there's a picture want you
to take. It's about IL miles in the
country. Hustle up now because we
want to make 1t for the next edition
which goes in two hours and ive min
Joe would probably swear-and then
resign.
spent a day with aerial photog-
raphers on the western front. Here is
one incident:
The telephone rang and a captain,
the chief of the aerial photographers,
1t.
Very good, sir. we will get the
photo for you," was what the captain
said, replying to a terse command that
came over the wire.
you'll excuse me for a while" he
said turning to me, Headquarters has
word of a concentration behind the
German lines, about IL, miles from
here. They want me to go over and
take a photo"
Within two or three minutes the
captain and his pilot were off In their
big observation machine. We watch
ed them until they were a mere speck
in the sky IN
Got the Goods.
When they were Just about over tie
German lines, a lot OF white puffs ap-
peared in the sky, directly under them,
and, while we could hear no sounds
because the wind was blowing from US,
We knew the German anti-aircraft
guns were popping away at them.
Presently they returned. The cap
tain hurried into a darkroom with an
and for some minutes all was
silence.
Then he poked his head through the
partly opened door and said with all
the enthusiasm OF boy:
She's a dandy; the best picture I've
taken in a week."
In exactly two hours and five min
utes from the time he got orders over
the telephone he laid the finished print
on the desk of his superior officer at
headquarters.
And within ten minutes the heavy
guns Of his army were concentrating
a destructive fire on an area behind
the German lines where, the aerial
showed. re-enforcements
and supplies were being brought up,
Crack Boy photographic.
1t was a 22-year-old boy photog-
rapher who took photo which show
ed the Germans putting in place, 26
miles east of Dunkirk, on the English
Channel, a monster gun capable of
throwing a one-ton shell into that
city.
His camera caught 'em in the act"
and before they could cover up their
designs, another allied plane was how
ering over the spot and dropped a
bomb that put the gun out of business
There's a second 2s-mile German
gun that still shells Dunkirk and every
allied aerial photographer in that sec
tor is irving to locate IL but the Ger