World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns -- France; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
which this new Army of the Winds was put, grew perpetually with its
growth. Let us remember that, while aeroplane _reconnaissance_ was of
immense service in the earliest actions of the war, _there was no
artillery observation by aeroplane till after the first Battle of the
Marne_. There is the landmark. Artillery observation was used for the
first time at the Battle of the Aisne, in the German retreat from the
Marne. Thenceforward, month by month, the men in the clouds became
increasingly the indispensable guides and allies of the men on the
ground, searching out and signalling the guns of the enemy, while
preventing his fliers from searching out and signalling our own. Next
came the marvellous development of aerial photography, by which the
whole trench world, the artillery positions and _hinterland_ of the
hostile army could be mapped day by day for the information of those
attacking it; the development of the bombing squadrons, which began by
harassing the enemy's communications immediately behind the fighting
line, and developed into those formidable expeditions of the
Independent Force into Germany itself, which so largely influenced the
later months of the war. Finally, the airman, not content with his own
perpetual and deadly fighting in the air, fighting in which the
combatants of all nations developed a daring beyond the dreams of any
earlier world, began to take part in the actual land-battle itself,
swooping on reserves, firing into troops on the march, or bringing up
ammunition.
[12] From the recent Official Report issued by the Air Board.
And while the flying Army of the Winds was there developing, the
flying Army of the Seas, its twin brother, was not a whit behind. The
record of the Naval Air Service, as the scouts for the Fleet, the
perpetual foe of, and ceaseless spy upon, the submarine, will stir the
instincts for song and story in our race while song and story remain.
It was the naval airmen who protected and made possible the safe
withdrawal of the troops from Suvla and Helles; it was they who
discovered and destroyed the mines along our coasts; who fought the
enemy seaplanes man to man, and gun to gun; who gave the pirate nests
of Zeebrugge and Ostend no rest by day or night, who watched over the
ceaseless coming and going of the British, Dominion, and American
troops across the Channel; who were the eyes of our coasts as the
ships, laden with the men, food, and munitions, which were the
life-blood of the Allied Cause, drew homeward to our ports, with the
submarines on their track, and the protecting destroyers at their
side.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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