Evening star., 1918-08-24
VALUE OF DIRECT HITS"
ON THE ENEMY'S DUMPS
Results Of Fifty Eight Minute
Air Raid at Night Described
by Participant.
orrespondence of the Associated Press.

Correspondence of the Associated Press.
BEHIND THE BRITISH LINES IN
FRANCE, July 31.-The British avia-
ton communique frequently. contains
brief line to record that Direct hits
were obtained upon an enemy dump"
at some point behind the German
lines. This colorless announcement
may seem to the reader in America
nothing more than the record of a dull
piece of routine. but the deed itself is
different from its 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 i'm
portance of it's effect upon enemy plans
and operations can hardly be exageer-
ated. A well aimed hit on store of
German ammunition may destroy the
work OF many months in the munition
factories and cripple numerous bat
teries for many long days.
Lieut.. Barnes Describes Raid.
A British airman. Lieut. W. A.
Barnes. has given the Associated Press
fifty-eight-minute raid on a German
dump as characteristic of this form of
activity:
.'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 a bit wear
ing. Dumps are. of curse. situated as
near 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 sell
dom situated near any definite land
marks. and are usually well camou-
flaged. By the study of maps and
photographs, however. We had pretty
well located the position of this one,
and started out on the raid with high
I'VE few almost due east from the
aerodrome. At the end of fifty min
utes we could just make out the out
let I out % a PARACHUTE fiares soo to light eh We Gp
the ground and make sure We were
over the target. This promptly dis
PEELED all doubts. for the Hun search
lights opened up at once. and a 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.
Flare Proves Real Friend
The parachute flare proved a real
friend, because both searchlights 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 results
we witnessed the finest firework dis
play l ever saw. Ammunition was
cracking off at record speed. dense
clouds of smoke were rising. and
highly colored flames were leaping 100
feet and more from the ground
I'VE watched this pleasing exhibi-
tion for some minutes, until the cough
on an Archie burst near by to remind
US that we were still over Hun-land,
and so turned and steered for home.
''The~.whole job occupied exactly
fifty-eight minutes; but it must have
cost Germany hundreds of manpewer
hours in munitions works. There was
still some fire there at noon next day
and saved our French allies good
many casualties, for. as it happens,
that big dump, we learned, was to
serve a bit of front facing French
trops."