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Show 5 GERMAN CONTROL IN AIRWARFARE Enemy Is Master in Raids Over the American Lines in France. WITH THE AMERICAN ARMY IN FRANCE. Feb. 20. (By the Associated Press.) Control of the air in the American sector belongs to the enemy. Any officer at the front will make this declaration all have made it. The control is obvious. German airplanes come and go over the American lines almost at will. Everv time the Germans come over their path the sky is specked by-shrapnel by-shrapnel puffs, but the chances of hitting hit-ting an airplane with anti-aircraft shells is so remote that tho enemy aviators calmly fly along as if on a pleasure tour. Every now and then airplanes on this side attack tho enemy. They always ao this when they "get a chance. But the Boche is clever while flying and manages to come over and take pictures, make observations ob-servations and do virtually whatever else he desires, and then calmly sail home without interruption. Nearly always al-ways he is at an altitude of about 3000 meters, where he is comparatively-safe comparatively-safe from anti-aircraft fire and knows it. f It is not permitted to name any officers of-ficers of the American expeditionary force. It is not permitted to quote them. If both were allowed it would be possible to carry quotations from virtually every officer at the front urging a speedy appearance of large numbers of Amorican airplanes with American pilots. , For there is only one way to wrest control of the air from the enemy that is to fight him for it in the sky and relieve him of it by force of overwhelming over-whelming numbers. Right now, if the Germans knew merican airplanes were waiting for them every time they came over the line, their trips would be less frequent. fre-quent. Neither would they dare to attempt at-tempt such a bold piece of work as when they recently flew over the line in an airplane disguised with the allied red, white and blue bullseye marking and cut loose with a machine gun on American soldiers in the trenches. |