The German aëroplanes are generally conceded to be the most effective in the war, and the Germans seem to possess more of them than any other nation. None of their machines are slow and their fastest ones are faster than any in the other armies. Aëroplanes have been singularly ineffective in attacking as their shooting is extremely bad. They usually miss their target by at least two hundred yards, and, so far as my personal knowledge goes, the only damage that they have ever done has been when they have had a whole city to shoot at. Something like forty bombs were thrown on Paris while I was in that city, and although some thirty or forty non-combatants were killed or wounded, a target of any military importance was hit on only one occasion, when a bomb was dropped through the roof of the Gare St. Lazare. In the field, the principal targets aimed at by the aëroplanes are supply and ammunition convoys. The method is for the aëroplane to fly above the road and to drop a bomb as it passes over the convoy. It then makes a circle and repeats the operation. I know personally of some fifty bombs thus dropped, not one of which struck anywhere near the target. The effect of the bombs is of small consequence and damage is seldom done except to the people who happen to be standing in the immediate neighborhood. The crater of the bombs thrown by German aëroplanes, when striking macadam or similar surfaces, is about fifteen inches in diameter and four inches deep. I have seen three such craters. The shrapnel bullets from the exploding bombs fly with a killing force to a distance of about fifty yards, and at the latter range the lowest bullets fly at a height of about twelve or fifteen feet. These bombs weigh about fourteen pounds. Aëroplanes have proved to be almost invulnerable in war. They are extremely difficult to hit, because one must calculate for three dimensions and for the speed of the aëroplane; when hit they seldom suffer serious damage. I know of a case where first and last nearly 200 bullets passed through a machine without its ever being put out of action. Indeed, it seems impossible to bring down an aëroplane except by a freak shot. The gasoline tank is high and narrow and is protected by a thin metal plate underneath, while struts and steering wires are usually double. Wounding the aviator does not usually bring down a machine, because he is sitting and is strapped in, and on calm days needs to employ only a slight muscular effort to steer. Moreover, there are usually two officers in an aëroplane and the systems of double control enable the aëroplane to return to its base even if one of them is killed outright. Anti-aircraft guns are not greatly feared by aviators, and they consider it merely an extraordinary piece of bad luck to be hit by one. The aviators fear most of all the fire of large bodies of infantry, and in flying over a regiment at an altitude of 1000 yards they realize that they run serious risk of being brought down.