The Mena weekly star., 1918-08-29
BOMBING OF HUN AMMUNITION DUMP
British Airman Gives the Associated Press An Interesting Account of a 58-Minute Raid-Much Work
 Is Destroyed.

Behind the British Lines in France, Aug. 23.-The British aviation com munique frequently contains a brief line to record that ''direct hits were obtained upon an enemy dump" at some point behind the German lines. This colorless announcement may seenl to the reader in America noth- ing more than the record of dull piece of routine, but the deed itself Is different from it's record
 American airmen attached to the British squadrons have long since found out that the business of bomb- ing dumps" often is exciting and spectacular work. Moreover, the im- portance of it's effect upon enemy plans and operations can hardly be exaggerated. A well-aimed hit on store of German ammunition may de- stroy the work of many months of intuition factories and cripple num- erous batteries for many long days.
 A British airman, Lieutenant w. A. Barnes, has given The Associated Press the following account of recent 5S-minute raid on German dump as characteristic of this form of ac- tivity:
 "On this particular night there was not enough moonlight for long raid, so the target given us was a German ammunition dump. We welcomed the change, for naturally, the strain of long distance raids into Germany, night after night, becomes bit wear ing. Dumps are, of course, situated as nearly as possible to the firing line; and so mean short raids.
 Dumps are by no means easy tar gets to find at night, for they are seldom situated near any definite land marks, and are usually we'll camu- flaged. By study of maps and photo graphs, however, we had pretty well located the position of this one, and started out on the raid with high hopes of success.
 We flew almost due east from the aerodrome. At the end of the fifty minutes, we could just make out the outlines of sheds. This was good, but we let out a parachute flare to light up the ground, and make sure we were over the target. This promptly dispelled all doubts, for the Hun searchlights opened up at once, and hail of machine gun bullets leaped up from the ground Anti-aircraft guns had been firing for some time, but the shells were bursting well above us and giving no trouble.
 "The parachute flare proved a real friend, because both searehlights and machine guns concentrated upon it, giving us just sufficient time to dive swiftly, release our bombs. switch on the engine and start climbing.
 When we turned to observe re- suits, we witnessed the finest fire works display ever saw. Ammuni- tion was cracking off at record speed dense clouds of smoke were rising and highly colored flames were leap ing hundred feet and more from the ground.
 "We watched this pleasing exhibi. tion for some minutes, until the cough of an Archie burst near by to re. mind us that we were still over Hun. land, and so turned and steered foI home.
 "The whole job occupied exactly 5s minutes; but it must have cost Ger. many hundreds of manpower hours ir intuition works-there was still some fire there next day at noon-and saved our French allies 8 good many easu- alties, for, as it happens, that bie dump, we learned, was to serve bit of front facing French troops"