The Nenana daily news. (Nenana, Alaska) 1918-1921, 1918-08-26
ALL A|RPlARES
SOON TO CARRY
BOMBS FOR HUN

land.-Almost every airplane used
by the Allies soon will carry bombs.
Experts in aerial warfare are COL
WINGED that the general efficiency
of the corps will be increased il a
bombing device is added to every
plane sent out, even though it be
of the type once intended only for
recognizance work, and Americans
now training in England are being
as carefully drilled in bombing as
in handling n machine gun.
! Lessons earned during The re-
sistance offered III the rect Of
fensive have served to increase the
already high regal Of both British
and American officers in the air-ser-
vice for the low-flying, Bomb cary
ing craft, and, over the camps AL
countryside where aviators are being
trained, planes are in evidence al
most every hour, dipping down from
high in the air and skimming the
nearby country, barely missing tree
tops and houses. 1t is the newer
lesson they are learning, and OBJ
servers back from the front where
the Allied planes did such remark
able work not only in scouting and
distracting the enemy, but actually
in breaking up formations and at
points checking the onward move
ment, have urged concentration on
| that form of training.
! British trainers, detailed to Amer
lean aviation camps, have been lib
eral in their praise of the new
filters from overseas, their only cri-
ticism being that the Americans are
"a bit too keen" Their tendency
has been to go in for flying stunts
rather too early in training, but
even this, the trainers have adj
mitted, is a valuable fault, although
one not to be encouraged.
1t has been pointed out to the
Americans that team work as well
as individual efficiency is prime
requisite and the Americans have
steadied themselves to the routine
their trainers have found makes for
general advancement if not for in
dividual applause. Fancy flying,
the acrobatic work that once found
favor and drew heavy gate receipts
at aerial exhibitions in the United
! States, still is taught, but the learn
ing of that form of flying also has
come to be regarded merely as rou-
tine and wholly incident to the
steady, low-flying desirable for at
lacking camps and troops in for
nation.
Accidents have occurred in the
camps where the Americans are be-
ing trained, and a few men have
been killed, but the records show
that the percentage is far less in
England than in the United States.
Those in training here are inclined
to attribute the difference more to
luck than to anything else, although
there also is pointed out the proba-
bility that the average airplane used
in England is a better made ma
chine than the average that has been
used in the United tSates.
The bombing devices being at
tached to virtually every plane is
not the contrivance that was used
in the earlier days of the war. That
used then was little more than a
mechanism that released the pro-
jectile, allowing it to fall at point
approximately near the target. The
device now being used is one with
which the operator may with much
practice, become almost as prof.
| cient in workmanship as an artillery
man is with his gun. Almost every
light plane will carry bombs of at
least 25 pounds and from heavier
types there will be hurled the huge
containers of high explosives not
materially different from those used
by the Germans in some of the more
recent raids.