The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-06-02

CAPTAIN
 Major R., original of Richard H
 new tributes to the royal flying corps
 and General Salmond, who commands it But when I asked this man who has ex- . perienced about as much warfare as any living American, what he thought about the American aerial participation. l his sharp eyes and his sharp face hard { ened suddenly.
 We have talked too much about that"
 he said sharply. Then he was silent for
 a long time. Finally he qualified him. 1 self.
 1 By wei do not mean the soldiers or the officers of the army but you who
 write things which the people read and
 those who speak to the public. What 1 happened? Well, you've got all America l and all the Europeon allies asking us why we haven't finished the war by a 1 blow from the air. We didn't say we
 would. You said we would. You set earily
 dates. They took your ord for it and
 expected us to do it.
 "Of course we will win the war through | the air. Not by one blow. but by se-
 ries of offensives of airplane infantry, air plane cavalry, airplane signal corps,
 and airplane bombing. That is not mere 1 ly the hope, it is the absolute convic-
 tion of ourselves and our allies. We are preparing for it. and do not forget that Germany has been preparing to prevent
 it. We have hard fight in front of us. 1 But that's the kind we like
 Tt takes time While operating an air. 1 plane is becoming more and more as sim- pie as running a taxi, and we can tram pilots in short order. we have to make
 battle fighters out of our pilots. And our plane production must exceed by an enormous figure the greatest effort the central empires are capable of making. Tn the fact of such facts, the publics of the allied countries have been led to believe by reports from America that the 1 war was as good as over, and that this
 spring would see the destruction of Ger many by allied aerial armandas, chiefly i American.
 "Behind this barrage of talk and 1 writing, however, there has been great work going on. Do not get the impress sion that I or anyone in the air serv- 1 ice either in France, in England or pack l home unGerrates this work. My per sonal opinion is that all the forces which have been building up the American air l service, the schools and the manufac- turers, will bring their finished prod l ucts in great numbers together quickly after the due allowance of time for 1 preparation and perfection, and thar once this is done the production Will increase and double. Then we will make 1 good the hopes of our own clViiians 1 and the allies"
 | "Captain Macklin" stopped and beat | some things in his suit case down with his fist, so that it closed eventually. 1 We've got men here now,' he con-
 tinued. Lots of them. Every part Of
 the game, from beginners in the schools
 to perfect fliers. We are the only nation whose supply of these fine young boys | f,II VI a trr q l.
 cally unlimited. We all know our manu- 1 featuring ability is producing the motors and the planes"
 He paused again, this time to com l ment on the lack of preparation in avia- | ton while it was apparent from the | trend of the European war two years ago shat fighting was depending more 1 and more on the use of the airplane.
 MASS BATTLES IN THE AIR we arc entering the last stage Of aerial development" he continued. Big formation fighting. The day of the ace ] is over When the war began 1t was l considered a great feat for an aviator
 to blow another aviator out of the air. | We had Guynemer and Bishop and Ball and 1mmelmann and Boelke, and we still have our aces today. although l every day 1t is becoming more difficult | to win a battle single handed. | Naturally this is going to take some 1 of the glory out of the air game for 1 our boys, for the daring exploits of the 1 aces have inspired all of us. But as l large formation fighting is the aerlai l way today and will become the only way tomorrow, the credit will be for our airmen as units just as it is for the | infantry and artillerymen below us, as units."
 | At this point Major R- probably re- 1 called something which tickled his mem ory. for he turned smile into laugh.
 say" he said, If you had been in Z- day before yesterday you would | have thought the whole war was up in the air already The way those l bombs rained down on us and the way | the village kept a-jumpin' up in pieces that was a sample of what air war | fare is coming to-"
 He reverted to the subject of large | feymation fighting.
 1 "We have heard a great deal about 1 the aeroplane becoming the new cav airy in as much as the present war has ended probably forever the em- | ployment of cavalry in it's former man. ner. and a substitute was needed. But l cavalry of the air does not by any
 means justly describe the coming av- | iation organization.
 Nearly all the branches of the mili- | tary service are and must be more full 1 ly developed for the aeroplane. There 1 is no longer any secret about the use I of small cannon on aeroplanes. and we must expect that with the develop ment of guns with the minimum of re coil larger pieces will be mounted and
 fired from planes in flight
 "Our intelligence work is now de- pendent and will become almost wholly 1 dependent on aerial observation. l "As cavalry the successes of the
 British royal flying corps in the pres 1 ent German offensive are our best 1 guides, for they have done wonderful l things. They have practically cap 1 tured and held towns and roads in tine 1 midst of the German hordes. and they
 have attacked and dispersed large bodies of infantry after decimating 1 their ranks.
 BOMBING GERMANY "We expect to devote a great part of our aerial strength to bombing Ger l many. I am hopeful that it will not be many days before we will be flying l formations of 50 to 100 machines 500 l yards apart, carrying and dropping 1 such an enormous weight of explosive l that the ground will lift beneath us, i that German munitions plants and the Rhine works and bridges will te smashed up day by day. But that will 1 be only a part of putting an army | into tba ir and tvinnipo