Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 February 1919 — AERIAL APRONS GUARD LONDON [ARTICLE]

AERIAL APRONS GUARD LONDON

London.—London’s aerial aprons, or huw the Gotha* were kept away, might form one tense chapter hi a book about how the British baffled the Hun air raiders. The hist six rnontlrs~ of the war there was not a single air raid ojp London, due. In part, to the fact that the city's defenses were such that they filled enemy flyers with terror. Any aviator that escaped the death traps —and the chances were about one in three he would not —generally was of little value thereafter for flylflg, because ids nerves were stiattered. A British aviator who by accident was caught In the aerial barrage, but managed to land safely near Loudon, tossed on a bed, verging on insanity for weeks, so horrible was the experience. Roughly, there were three chief weapons for dealing with Hun air raiders; the aerial barrage, aided by searchlights; fast, fighting scout planes that attacked the irtVaders, and aerial aprons. The Germans, it may be noted, were never able to perfect any scheme to present British aviators from bombing Rhine towns evep in the daytime. Aerial Aprons Queer Things. The aerial aprons were queer things. They reminded one of rope portieres. Upon signal, captive balloons were sent aloft from the outskirts of the city, the balloons being in pairs. These buoyed up a curtain of dangling ropes, a half-mile or so -+ong. -These aerial aprons served two purposes: First, they forced the raiders to fly high, and when they flew high they could not drop bombs effect! velyT” second, any machine darting into the ropes courted destruction. When flying high they were met by the British fighting scouts. These aerial aprons were shifted daily as to height so enemy airmen could not be forewarned. London always had the protection of four score airplanes during the last year of war. These machines could mount to 20,000 feet. The aviators were picked night flyers. At such heights it is difficult to see another airplane at 100 yards. But at a given signal these birdmen took to the skies, jealously guarding the approaches to London. These brave fellows often chased a hostile machine into the barrage and a few British birdmen were killed by their own shells. But whether it was a Zeppelin or a Gotha that was bent on baby killing the British scouts would swoop at their foes like hawks. The barrage was almost like drumfire. There were two outer barrages and one inner. Scores of guns, many of them six-inch rifles, were employed in this work. They generally worked in batteries of four, each unit of the battery, perhaps, being a mile or two from the ether units. The four guns would endeavor to get a hostile plane in the center of their box fire, and then

gradually eJose In their Are so the enemy could not escape, the “aerial box” gradually Joeing narrowed. _ The entire process depended largely upon listening devlceswhlch could "Ser tect the approach of a humming airplane miles away. Efficient Defense System. The defense system was so efficient that 75 per cent of the raiding machines were kept out of London. And those machines that got past -the ! barrages had great difficulty tn escaping. To the terror of bursting shrapnel was added the confusion of Verey lights, some red, some blue, others green, white, yellow and orange, and i these flashing lights, intermingled j with the terrific din of the exploding shell, so confused aviators that they lost all sense of direction and space and many of their machines got out of control, becoming an easy prey. In such cases British birdmen would approach, firing on the enemy machine, anti-aircraft guns would halt, and the hostile plane would be brought down by a burst from the British plane. But often there .were fierce duels, marked by spitfire from the machine guns of the contending flyers. The course which the raiders took was traced out, minute by minute, by the “stethoscope” operators, and directions given to searchlight crews, anti-aircraft gunners and flashed'io airdromes by aerial defense headquarters, which conducted the battle much In the same Way as" a general in the field. Scarcely a Gotha got through the outer Txuulon barrage Unscathed. The faint heants who couldn’t penetrate the barrage often turned back, only to find they were outnumbered four to one by faster British machines.