The whole equipment is so built that we used to set it up ready for work
in from three to five minutes. The operators then adjusted their
head-phones and were ready to _tune-in_ the incoming signals from the
airplane as soon as it should come in sight. You see, our detail on the
ground only received wireless signals from the airplane while the
operator in it, or _observer_ as he is called, only sent wireless
signals. This one sided arrangement had to be used because the propeller
makes so much noise that the operator in the airplane would have trouble
in reading the signals. In order to signal to the airplane as she flew
above us we used a system of _panels_.
[Illustration: “THE AIRPLANE SIGNALLED DOWN TO US IN CODE”]
This consists of a large piece of white cloth about twelve feet square
spread out on the ground and three strips of white cloth twelve feet
long and a couple of feet wide. These strips are laid in different
positions relative to the square and each position has a number that
means an order which the observer in the airplane also knows.
Further a small black square about eighteen inches on the side is placed
on the big white square so that the observer can tell which battalion
the outfit belongs to. The different positions of the strips and square
are given numbers and the panelmen as well as the observer know what
order each number means. As the panels can be arranged in twenty-seven
different positions it is just about as hard to learn the panel code as
it is the Morse alphabet.
Now as soon as the wireless apparatus has been set up the panelmen put
out their big square and one strip at the end of it, and when the
airplane comes close enough to see the panels he knows that we want him
to _designate_, that is to name the target which the battery is to fire
at. This he sends to us by wireless and our operators write it down.
While our detail was setting up the wireless apparatus, the _telephone
detail_ from our outfit had run a _wire line_ from our B. C. station to
the batteries which are several hundred yards ahead of us. When our
operators get the target, or _pin-point_ as it is called, from the
observer in the airplane, he (the operator) phones it to the battery
commander who orders the guns set for it.
The airplane then signals down to us in code and asks “is the battery
ready?” The telephone man tells us that the battery is ready and the
panelmen put out No. 5, which means “the battery is ready.” The airplane
observer sends down “_fire_,” our operators yell the order to the
telephone man who in turn shouts it into the mouthpiece of his ’phone;
the ’phone operator at the battery end informs the Battery Commander and
he gives the order when the guns are fired either by _piece_, that is
one at a time, or by _salvo_, which is all at once.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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