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Show imiB u V WINNING THE WAR IN THE AIR. B American aeroplanes enter the world conflict at the H -crucial moment; the deadlock that has for so long held 1 the world must be broken by attack from the skies. That H 5s the opinion of Augustus W. Post, former secretary of the Aero Club of America. The heart of the Central B Powers is Essen enveloped in an obscuring canopy of H smoke clouds where the vast Krupp works send through H the veins of Germany the life blood of munitions. One B aeroplane could not destroy Essen, nor a few aeroplanes, H "hut a fleet of them, a fleet in numbers commensurate with 1 i the vastness of this war, could beyond the shadow of H -doubt blow the Essen works into ruin, and accomplish 1 xrjpre than any other military operation. B Such is the opinion of the most cool-headed end prac- B tfcal experts, not mere dreamers. It is the opinion of the B Iwslness-like Orville Wright, an opinion shared by all who B Imow the situation of Germany in aeronautics. The B Central Powers no longer hold supremacy of the air, as B 3br a time they did. At present the best they can do in B output and equipment is barely to hold their own and B in. the even more important matter of providing aviators, B the long drain upon the young manhood of Germany B where the mortality has been greatest in the very classes B irom which aviators must be recruited has left her at a B disadvantage. B The "balance of power lies with America with the ma- m chines we can furnish and the brilliant fliers we are turn- B ing out every hour. At the crucial moment of the world's B "history, victory hovers in the air, awaiting the direction B -of American energy and the command of American B genius. And when the victory has been won, and America B Graving vindicated her claim to stand among the cham- B "pioTis of democracy, goes back to her well won place, a B new element will have come into American life through B the part the nation will take in the campaigns in the air. B Navy and Merchant Marine. |