The evening herald. (Klamath Falls, Or.) 1906-1942, 1919-12-08
SAVED BY CAMERA
How Aerial Spy Prevented Sac.
rifice OF Lie.
Revealed to General Foeh That POSI-.
tion He Had Decided to Capture
Would BE Too Costly IN un.
dertaklno. +

By the eternal fitness OF things sir
Arthur Conan Doyle should write this
story. for In the spellhound hours In
which laconlc brown men In khaki Ind
horizon blue" gave u to me visual
lied no one SO much as Sherlock
Holmes-grim, hroodlng and penetrat'
ing-ridng In their places miles over
the smoke Of Flanders; sitting In their
places In the map-lIttered dugouts be-
hind the lines Of battle, untnngllng the
Reid writes In Popular Mechanics
magazine. IL In the story OF the great
est detective system ever devised 10y
man, the inner story OF how the al.
lies by aerial photography and weird
deduction from meaningless prints of
the German lines solved the riddles
Of the foc-the story OF the camera,
the best spy OF the time" Into this
story will come the strange case Of
the human footprint aud the countless
things OF stealth IL revealed, also the
curious "rogues' gallery" OF German
generals which the allied detectives
collected. kept and used with such sure
might-also the odd -. but Il be
ginning must be made.
There Is no more astonishing thing
In the whole marvel OF aerial photog'
raphy than the cameras ability to
catch the trail Of walking man. Al
two and half miles In the mir the
lal hA h.,
footprints OF n man going across slight
ly shelled ground. At n mile II will
show them on new-mown grass. Al
five miles II will reveal them trailing
across "No Mans land"
Consider this: Once the French
knowing that Bavarian "landsturm"--
poor machIne-gun hghters--held II
weakly. At dawn a photographer went
up, came dashing back with n picture
and Is minutes later the French gen.
eral called on the attack and saved the
lives Of thousands Of his men. And
yet the camera had caught no remark.
able thing. II merely showed that one
group OF men had gone out and an.
other come into the trenches during
The night The footprints OF the Ger.
mans told that much. The incoming
trail, followed back, was found TO
emerge from a woods. lying beside q |
ine white road. The allied detectives.
over their prints, followed |
hat road to the nearest German can.
onment and proved by still other pho |
ographs that the cantonment was held |
~ Prussians. Presto! The French |
tan knew that crack PrussIans were |
opposing them and that II would be |
loihng short Of suicide to attack.
Deduction Of this sort was more than
lalf Of the work of the aerial photog- !
Apply sections Of the allied armies. |
rbe work Of swapping pictures from
he air was picturesque, dangerous. he
ole; but for thrill and romance give
ne those sweating. silent men In the
lugouts, studying photographs by the
lour. catching a clew here, a telltale
mark there that made Hindenburg's
,lans an open book.
Modern Photographic science laid be-
ore each allied general a complete
'icture Of everything the enemy was
oing and almost everything II was
oing TO do. 1t showed him unmistsk.
bly, what his own men were doing and
ghat they could do. II relieved MIN
{ conflicting stories from spies. from
uman mistake-fOr the camera does
ot lie.
Napoleon could not guess what Wei;
ngton was planning; Foch could send
p q photographer and within an hour
now what Ludendorf was thinking
(.