Adjt. Prince: Senator, there are about four kinds of machines used abroad on the western front to-day. The machines that Adjt. Rumsey and myself are looking after are called the battle machines. Then there are the photography machines, machines that go up to enable the taking of photographs of the German batteries, go back of the line and take views of the country behind their lines and find out what their next line of attack will be, or, if they retreat from the present line, then everything in that way. Probably we have, where we are, in my group alone, a hundred and fifty photographers who do nothing all day long except develop pictures, and you can get pictures of any part of the country that you want. When the Germans retreated from the old line where they used to be, by Peronne and Chaulnes, we had absolute pictures of all the Hindenburg line from where they are now right down to St. Quentin, down to the line the French are on. We had photographs of it all.
Senator Kirby: When they started on the retreat?
[Illustration: © Kadel & Herbert.
Miss Ruth Law at Close of her Chicago to New York Flight.]
Adjt. Prince: Yes, sir. So we knew exactly where their stand would be made. Then, besides that, those photograph machines do a lot of scouting. They have a pilot and a photographer aboard. He has not only a camera, but quite often he has a Lewis gun with him in order to ward off any hostile airmen if they should get through the battle planes that are above him; in other words, should get through us in order to fight him. They do a great deal of the scouting, because they fly at a lower level. The battle planes go up to protect photography machines, or to go man-hunting, as it is called; in other words, to fight the Germans. We fly all day, like to-day, as high as we can go, or as high as the French go as a rule, about 5500 metres, about 17,000 to 18,000 feet.
[Illustration: © International Film Service.
A French Aviator between Flights.]
Adjt. Rumsey: I think 5500 metres is about 19,000 feet. Some go up 6000 metres, which makes about 20,000 feet.
Adjt. Prince: We go up there, and we have a certain sector of the front to look after. If we are only man-hunting, we go backward and forward like a policeman to prevent the Germans from getting over our own lines. We usually fly by fours, if we can, and the four go out together, so as not to be alone. We are usually fighting inside of the German lines, because the morale of the French and English is better than that of the Germans to-day; and every fight I have had--I have never been lucky enough to have one inside of my own lines--they have all been inside of the German lines.
Senator Kirby: What is the equipment of a battle plane such as you use?
Adjt. Prince: I use the 180 horse-power machine. It is called a "S. P. A. D.," which has a Spanish motor. But a great many of the motors to-day are being built here in America.
Senator Kirby: How many men do you carry?
Adjt. Prince: We go up alone in these machines. We did have two guns. We had the Lewis gun on our upper wing and the Vickers down below, that shoots through the propeller as the propeller turns around. Then we gave up the Lewis above. It added more weight, and we did not need it so much. The trouble with the Lewis gun is that it has only ninety-seven cartridges, while the Vickers has five hundred, and you can do just as much damage with the Vickers as you could with them both.
Senator Sutherland: You drive and fight at the same time?
Adjt. Prince: Yes, sir.
Adjt. Rumsey: The machine gun is fixed.
Adjt. Prince: It is absolutely fixed on the machine, and if I should want to adjust it to shoot you, I would adjust my machine on you.
The witness then took up the nature and work of some of the heavier machines. He testified:
Adjt. Prince: Then comes the artillery regulating machine. That machine goes up, and it may be a Farman or a bi-motor, or some other kind of heavier machine, a machine that goes slowly. They go over a certain spot. They have a driver, who is a pilot, like ourselves; then they have an artillery officer on board, whose sole duty it is to send back word, mostly by Marconi, to his battery where the shots are landing. He will say: "Too far," "Too short," "Right," or "Left," and he stays there over this battery until the work done by the French guns has been absolutely controlled, and above him he has some of these battle planes keeping him from being attacked from above by German airmen. Of course, they may be shot at by anti-aircraft guns, which you can not help. That is artillery regulating.
The Chairman: Are you always attacked from above?
