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Show BATHES BEING British Hold Mastery Over the Germans, But at Considerable Con-siderable Cost. WITH THE BRITISH ARMIES IN FRANCE, April 8, via London, 10:18 p. m. (From a Staff Correspondent of the Associated Press) ! Under a" blue Easter sky, British aviators by tho hundred continued today their work of re-establishing beyond all question their supremacy in tho air. They carried car-ried the fighting -wholly into the enemy ene-my territory, sought out their airdromes, air-dromes, military headquarters, ammunition ammu-nition dumps and concentration camps and challenged the Germans In every possible manner to come up and flght. In ono instance the British .ilyors penetrated fifty miles behind the German Ger-man lines. They fairly flew circles about tho numerically superior enemy squadron that sought to intercept them. Speed and maneuvering powers are the great qualities of modern airplane air-plane scouts, and to have a place with tho elite of the upper air the machines must develop in the neighborhood of 150 miles an hour and bo able to do tricks that no bird over accomplished. To the layman the weather seemed ideal for flying, but the airmen were Inclined to complain because some of the woolly patches of clouds had enabled en-abled several hard-pressed Gorman aviators to tako refuge in their miat and escape immediate punishment. "Give us three or four cloudless days and we will hit tho Bocho airmen such a blow that they won't be able to re-covor re-covor all summer," said an enthusiastic enthusi-astic wing subaltern to tho correspondent' correspon-dent' today. Losses Heavy. The loss of twonty-eight machines in two days' bombing, fighting, photographing photo-graphing and observing is countod by the airmen as a small price for tho work accomplished, considering the number of machines engaged, coupled also with tho fact that all theso operations opera-tions wore within tho German lines. Against tho loss of tho British machines ma-chines must be placed fifteen German alrplanos actually sent crushing down and thirty-one driven down damaged, most of which are believed to have been destroyed. Tho British will not officially announce a hostile machine destroyed unless two or moro of their flyers actually see tho falling plane ablaze or watch it crash into a hopeless hope-less mass of wreckage, When flyers are engaged in fighting tho formation iB twenty or moro ma chines and when one begins to go down there is seldom time to watch the completion of its earthward journey. jour-ney. Under such conditions a hostile machine is not countod in the total enemy casualties. However, the British Brit-ish flying corps Is absolutely unperturbed unper-turbed when Its losses exceed those of the enemy. The men philosophically regard this as the penalty necessarily entailed in maintaining the offensive. Technically the Germans seldom have a machine "missing," for with tho fighting going on almost entirely on their side of tho line all their machines driven down can be accounted for. Thoro is no comparison between the amount of work done by the British and Gorman machines. To airmen maintenance of supremacy means ability abil-ity to ascend daily and accomplish whatever aerial work is desired. Although Al-though the Germans have been more active in recent weeks, they have never nev-er interfered at any time seriously with this work. In bad weather, in which tho British are unablo to harass h'lm, the Boche generally starts prying over tho British lines. Two days of fighting generally discourage him, however. Preponderance of Machines. The British have a great preponderance preponder-ance of machines, and at least thirty of these probably go over the German lines against one hostile machine flying fly-ing on this side of the trenches. This ratio of activity within tho enemy territory ter-ritory must always be sot against tho ratio of losses. The maintenance of a great number of machines enables the British to early ear-ly on a preponderance of artillery fire, directing their shots, not by hazard or "off tho map," but under the actual eyes of the airplanes. The constant aggressiveness of the British flying corps and the willingness willing-ness of tho splendid young pilots and observers to tako every manner of risk means information for and protection of tho army on the ground to an extent ex-tent which they regard as amply repaying re-paying their sacrifices. Under their guidance on this Easter day the British Brit-ish guns were roaring all along the far-reaching Rattle lines. |