Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-04-01
ESQ FlierS at the Front

! [Fhom the Cent Soixante Six (166th
| Squadron, Army OF Occupation)
Trier, Germany.1
When Tennyson immortalized
Balaklava's noble Six Hundred" in
his Charge of the Light Brigade"
| it's a pity he couldn't have fixed the
meter for the substitution of six
Hundred and Fifty" so that the stir
ring lines could have done duty in
paraphrase q few decades later to
commemorate Americas aerial con-
tribution to the great war. For, to
the best of our belief the number of
our flight brigades" came to about
that total, possibly a little bit more,
most likely less.
In the first place, it should be ex-
planned that these figures refer ex-
clusively to the men who got into
action-who saw enough service
across the lines to put them in the
combatant class. They weren't de-
duced, you may be sure, from news
paper reports of Official state
ments' in regard to air service per-
sonnel. The latter might be made
the theme for sequel to Baron
Munchausen's widely known nara
tives, but as data for a, serious es-
innate of air service forces they re-
Qulre some editlnS.
But" somebody exclaims, "the
brunt of the fighting borne by less
than seven hundred flyers-surely
there's some mistake. Why the
press reports put the American air
forces in France at something like
| fifty-eight thousand. of whom near
ly seven thousand were officers"
Perhaps, but that isn't saying they
were all at the front.
NO." you may rejoin, "but the
same report says that two thousand
of them were-2, 161 officers and 22,-
351 men, to quote exactly"
Admittedly, it looks as if some
body had made a mistake. But be-
fore throwing out anybodys figures
let's examine the data little fur
ther. The same reports quote the
number of squadrons at the front as
thirty-nine, twenty of which were
pursuit and the rest reconnaissance
or bombardment. That might not
be so far off, if you count in the
eleven squadrons that the French
supplied, and the three more for
which we must thank our Italian
allies. And then, too, there may
have been some new American
squadrons formed just about the
! time of the armistice; but suppos-
ing there were, they never did any
work and ought not to be included
| in an estimate of effectives during
the hostilities. Even then, two
thousand or more officers would be
pretty full complement for thirty
nine squadrons, wouldn't they?
But just suppose, for the sake OF
the argument, that two thousands
flyers did get into the zone of ad-
vance, is it safe to conclude, from
this bare supposition, that anywhere
near that number of men ever fit
ted through an Archie burst, bomb
ed an enemy dump, executed re-
connaissance or strafed a trench?
Most decidedly not. Knowing what
we do about air service squadrons
in the line it seems a practical GER
tainty that no more than half that
total could have seen action over
Hun territory, while, in the opinion
of many who are able to speak from
the standpoint of participants in air
service operations at the front, q
bare two-thirds would be nearer the
correct proportion.
And what of the $50? Well, just
to avoid a fiamboyant peroration
let's stick to the crisp text of the
war office report as quoted:
The total casualties of the air serv-
ice in action were 442, including 109
killed. 103 wounded, 200 missing, 27
prisoners of war and interned.