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With difficulty restraining the Haussas from opening fire, for they would not be convinced that the "great buzz-bird" could possibly make a mistake, and that it must be a Boche machine, Dudley awaited developments, watching with decided apprehension the seaplane circling to take up a favourable position for another bomb-dropping effort.

The second competitor flying at 800 feet landed seven bombs within the square, but only one other competitor succeeded in placing one bomb within the space. Bomb-dropping under the above conditions, however, is vastly dissimilar from such work under the grim realities of war.

You not only have on the front a large number of bomb-dropping machines, but a large number of fighting machines.

Bearing in mind the vulnerability of the average aeroplane, and the general absence of protective armouring against rifle fire at almost point-blank range, it shows the important part which the human element is compelled to play in bomb-dropping operations.

Prince: There is no doubt that if we could send over in huge waves a great number of these bomb-dropping machines, and simply lay the country waste for instance, the big cities like Strassburg, Freiburg, and others not only would the damage done be great, but I guess the popular opinion in Germany, everything being laid waste, would work very strongly in the minds of the public toward having peace.

Bomb-dropping, however, has not been indulged in to any great extent by either of the combatants, and the chief use to which air machines have been put is that of scouting. The Germans use them largely for range finding, and they seem to prove a very accurate guide to the gunners. The aviator had hardly gone when we were riddled with shot and shell."

He was further charged with having taken a kindly interest in air-war and bomb-dropping, and given it as his opinion that it would be absurd "to deprive of this advantage those who had made most progress in perfecting this weapon." But M. Tardieu successfully exorcised these and other ghosts.

The cost was, perhaps, one man per yard; but as Tommy said, "It ain't the trench wot counts. It's the more-ale. Bucks the blokes up to win, an' that's worth a 'ole bloomin' army corps." Rumors of all degrees of absurdity reached us. The enemy was massing on our right, on our left, on our immediate front. The division was to attack at dawn under cover of a hundred bomb-dropping battle-planes.

But I am writing a journal of high adventure of a cleaner kind, in which all the resources in skill and cleverness of one set of men are pitted against those of another set. We have no bomb-dropping to do, and there are but few women and children living in the territory over which we fly.

Endeavours were made to solve by means of lectures, discussions and committees the problems connected with mobilization, technical and military training, observation, wireless telegraphy, signals, night flying, photography, bomb-dropping, workshops, stores, meteorology, transport, shifting of camp and aerodrome, supply and maintenance of units in the field, etc. in fact the whole organization essential to the efficiency and cohesion of a Flying Corps, under conditions as similar as possible to those expected on active service.