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Updated: June 5, 2025
On this day one of the British machines was missing. Again, the report on December 29, 1915, from the British War Office mentioned an unsuccessful attack by the Germans on one of the British aerodromes by four machines, only two of which reached their objective, and no damage was done to them, although one of the British aeroplanes was shot down.
So much for night bombing. By day it is different. Though at night it is the billets which usually form the target, by day bombing is carried out for the purpose of damaging specific objects. Railroads, dumps of stores and ammunition, and enemy aerodromes are the favourite targets. The raiding machines fly in formation and are surrounded by other machines used solely for protective purposes.
Langley was an old man when he began the study of aeronautics, or, as he himself might have expressed it, the study of aerodromics, since he persisted in calling the series of machines he built 'Aerodromes, a word now used only to denote areas devoted to use as landing spaces for flying machines; the Wright Brothers, on the other hand, had the great gift of youth to aid them in their work.
Flying, however, was always difficult on the Plateau, especially during the winter, and more difficult for our men than for theirs, since there were no feasible landing-places behind our lines. Our nearest aerodromes were down on the plain, and a big expenditure of petrol was required to get the airman up the mountains and actually over the Plateau, and also to get him down again.
In many cases side-slips have taken place at aerodromes when the pilot has been rounding a pylon with the nose of his machine pointing upwards. When a machine flies round a corner very quickly the pilot tilts it to one side. Such action as this is known as BANKING. This operation can be witnessed at any aerodrome when speed handicaps are taking place.
His example made the gliding machine a continuous performance until real practical aerial flight was achieved. As far back as 1894 Maxim built a giant aeroplane but it was too cumbersome to be operated. In America the wonderful work of Professor Langley of the Smithsonian Institution with his aerodromes attracted worldwide attention.
The roads which had been remade by the British over the shell-scarred and honeycombed surface of the land; the aerodromes; the training-camps; the tanks; the wonderful new railways for troops and ammunition: the bands of German prisoners docilely at work.
Only the technical mind can realise all that it has involved in the production of trained personnel, aeroplanes, engines, aircraft depôts, aerodromes, wireless equipment, photographic workshops and accessories, bombs, and a thousand and one other necessaries. Many thousand pilots have been trained in all the branches of war flying.
The others in the ward are like phantoms. When I say to-morrow, "How is the boy?" what will they say? The sun on the cobwebs lights them as it lights the telephone-wires above. The cocks scream from every garden. To-day the sky is like a pale egg-shell, and aeroplanes from the two aerodromes are droning round the hill. I think from time to time, "Is he alive?" Can one grow used to death?
Plans of ships, aerodromes and harbours, sailings of convoys, calling up of soldiers all these are the A B C of our secret service profession. We shall never ask our friend here for a single fact, but, from his town house in Berkeley Square, the host of Cabinet Ministers, of soldiers, of the best brains of the country, our fingers will never leave the pulse of Britain's day by day life."
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