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Aviation History
1918
1918 - 0904.PDF
HT supremacy and are straining every resource to keep it not only in front but to increase our lead. Which is good knowledge. . , • f • A correspondent at the front has sent The Hun home for publication an extract from Our a^i . , the captured diary of a German officer Mastery? which is rather interesting, in that it not only concedes that the British air service is definitely on top of the Hun, but because it contains some rather caustic comments on the lack of keenness which appears to characterise the air work of the enemy's flying service. One entry says : " These fellows (British airmen) either at II a.m. or 5 p.m. drop about ioo bombs every day, sometimes with, very often without, results. Con- scious of our might, not a single German machine shows up ! Although the newspapers cannot brag and bluster enough when they publish anything about the Flying Service, our airmen themselves admit that we are inferior to the enemy in numbers and equipment. In any case, they are not as impudent as Tommy. Day and night he is overhead, dropping bombs past all counting. There have been very fine airmen on our sides, but in this respect Tommy is not second to us." Then, a later entry records that : •" We had visits from airmen every day at II a.m. and 5 p.m. With clockwork certainty the flights arrived, dropped their eggs and disappeared. As a rule, our Archies could not touch them, as they flew at a height the shell never reached. Our airmen showed very little activity here ... I do not know in what our superiority consists .... Great liveliness in the air prevails above us, not from our side but from the enemy's. During our last day in rest Tommy crashed three of our contact patrols. The enemy has got faster and more flexible machines, and one can only pity our clumsy things, together J with their occupants, when attacked by three or four flying men. They are under such hot fire that they have no alternative but to crash. All three crashed in flames." If the impressions recorded in this diary, were not confirmed from other captured letters and docu- ments it might be argued that either the observations which led up to the writer's conclusions were local only, or were perhaps exaggerated by nerve strain caused by being constantly under aerial bombard- ment. But the experience of this officer is not at all unusual. On the contrary, we know it is general all along the line, and that the Allied superiority in the air is in sober truth having a very salutary effect on the morale not only of the enemy's flying service but on the whole of his armies. That much is not . in doubt. As we have said in an earlier paragraph, we believe at last that the Allied'Governments are really doing all that is possible to maintain that superiority and to increase it. And it will progres- sively increase. Up to the present, we have scarcely felt the benefit of our later programme of construction. We have in truth but lately emerged from the hand- to-mouth stage. All our energies were absorbed in the creation of facilities for turning out vast numbers of machines and at the same time building up a service of sufficient strength to carry on the absolutely essential work on the battle fronts. We had very little to spare for anything else. But now the facilities of which we have spoken have not only been created but are in working order and making them- AUGVST 15, 1918. selves felt in greater numbers of machines of a faster and better type than we have ever possessed during the four years of war. Production has largely become automatic, as it were, with the consequence that not only have we passed the point of simple superiority in numbers, but we are rapidly building up what should be, before many months are past, an overwhelming supremacy. It must not be for- gotten, either, that the present position has been arrived at before the great American programme has even begun to take effect. We have all that in reserve, so that if the war should be protracted into next spring, we shall start the year with an aerial ascendancy which will hold forth fair promise of an early decisive victory. "*•-- A case was heard the other day in Pilots'*0 one of the London police courts, in Risks. which two men, workers in an aero- plane factory, were summoned by the Ministry of Munitions for " committing certain acts likely to endanger any person using an aeroplane." From the evidence it appeared that the two were working on aeroplane spars, and in the course of their employment drilled a hole in a spar which was a quarter of an inch out. When- the error was discovered they simply said nothing about it, bu,t plugged the hole and drilled another in the right place. A Government inspector who detected the mistake, asked one of the men if he would like to fly in a machine in which such a spar had been used, and received the reply that he . would not. Obviously this man at least knew that the error which he had covered up—or attempted to hide—had resulted in seriously weakening the spar, although the defence offered was that neither knew that plugging was not allowed in aeroplane work. After hearing the case, the Bench fined each of these worthies £10, not by any means too severe a penalty for such an act, though it was probably severe enough to serve as a deterrent to other workers who may be inclined to scamp things in a similar manner. - ~ . ~ _ ^ : It is not quite easy to realise the state of mind of people who, to cover up the results of their casual methods of work, or even their genuine mistakes, seem to be perfectly willing that others should run a serious risk of losing their lives as a result. Unfor- tunately, the records of inspection show that such cases are by no means infrequent. Sometimes, of course,_ they result from pure ignorance of the effect likely to come about through careless work. In a minority of cases they occur through initial carelessness on the part-of workers who really know better but who had rather someone else should incur risk than that they should find themselves in trouble through it. In the latter variety of case we certainly do not think that any sort of fine is adequate. To wilfully pass- defective material or parts for use in aeroplane con- struction is every bit as bad as taking matches into an explosives factory. In fact, it is worse, because in the latter case there is simply a danger that the matches may accidentally ignite and cause an explo- sion, while in the other there is the absolute certainty that the factor of safety of th* resultant machine will be seriously lowered and that the lives of the pilot and his observer will be gravely jeopardised. Therefore, it seems to us that it is the worse offence. 902
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