USA > New York > The Minute men of '17 - a history of the service rendered during the recent world war by the Ninth Coast Artillery Corps, New York Guard and the Veteran Corps of Artillery, state of New York > Part 11
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While Captain Wilder was at the school, Captain Humbert, the senior officer, received word that the first American class was on the way to the school for instruction, and as no Americans had as yet graduated, the problem of instructing thirty-six eager students was appalling. Moreover there was no equipment for a school, no quarters for the students, and no commissariat. In this emergency it seemed to Captain Wilder appropriate that he give his help for the time being to untangle the situation which might have caused a serious delay in the prosecution of the war. He therefore delayed the completion of his report, and placed himself under Captain Humbert's orders. The Chateau was commandeered,
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AMERICAN OFFICERS AT THE SCHOOL, ARNOUVILLE.
THE UBIQUITOUS BARBED WIRE.
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supplies were gathered, and arrangements made in the village for a boarding-place. The material contained in the report as well as Captain Anderson's notes were rushed to Paris and mimeographed to serve as text-books. When the contingent arrived, a school, such as it was, was in working order. This was the beginning of what became a very large school, covering the Chateau grounds with barracks, and filling the Chateau itself with school rooms.
In addition to the work at the school, Captain Wilder, to make the report as complete as possible, visited the principal forts sur- rounding Paris and conferred with French officers as to the defense of the city, and was present at a number of trials of new apparatus.
In the meantime Lieutenant Ward who had begun the survey of the defenses of Paris was obliged to go to England on the receipt of a cable from Major Stoddard. The fact that the Commission was able to obtain so much information in such a short time and to visit so many strategic points was not accidental. It was due entirely to Lieutenant Ward's brilliant work in liason. A diplomat trained in European customs, a personal friend of many high offi- cials of both England and France, he was able to open doors that otherwise would have been closed at that time to Americans.
On October 20th the appropriation having been expended, and as much material having been gathered as the time allowed, the Com- mission made ready to return. Lieutenant Ward, who had been promoted to a Captaincy in the meantime, remained in Paris as he had been appointed a Major in the Aviation Section, Signal Corps, U. S. Army. After organizing the Bureau of Production, he made a study of the French Aviation Supply System from the factory to the front, including the Aviation Schools and upon the completion was made the representative of the U. S. Aviation in securing from the French Government the necessary properties and facilities im- mediately required for the American development in France, and taking action thereafter on property secured for immediate devel- opment. Subsequently he was transferred to the Intelligence Sec- tion, and was designated Chief of the Intelligence Section, L. of C. Later he was promoted to be Assistant Chief of Staff, G2., S. O. S.,
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and promoted Lieutenant-Colonel General Staff. In this capacity he organized the U. S. A. intelligence system in England and France, and on the Spanish, Swiss and Italian borders. He also operated the systems. His name was before the Army Board at G. H. Q. in France for promotion to the grade of General, but the Armistice put a stop to further activities of this board as far as promoting Reserve officers to the grade of General was concerned. However, he took part in the St. Mihiel offensive and is entitled to wear battle stars for various other engagements. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal by the United States Govern- ment March 21, 1919, together with the citation "For exceptionally meritorious and distinguished services." As Assistant Chief of Staff, in charge of the Intelligence Section of the Services of Supply, he has rendered services of the most valuable character. He has handled with great efficiency the important task of counter-espion- age throughout the American Expeditionary Forces and in the neighboring neutral countries. In this service he showed marked ability, combined with superior military knowledge. On April 25, 1919, he was made "Officier de la Légion d'honneur" by the French Republic, and on April 29th, 1919, the British made him a "Commander of Distinguished Order."
Major Stoddard and Captain Wilder returned with the report, the substance of which is contained in the following chapter. Major Stoddard commanded the Second Battalion of the Ninth C. A. C. for a time and later became Division Ordnance officer of the 17th Division U. S. A., reaching the grade of Lieutenant- Colonel.
Captain Wilder was incapacitated for some months due to the gassing he received, but later returned to his duties as Works Man- ager of the American Ammunition Co.'s loading plant from which he had been borrowed for the purposes of the trip. In the mean- time he had been placed on the Reserve List of the New York Guard. After the Armistice on an order from Colonel Burleigh he was attached to the Ninth C. A. C. as an Instructor in Artillery. He also served several assignments under Colonel Byrne as acting
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Artillery Engineer in the Ninth Coast Defense Command. Dur- ing his last assignment he was commissioned a Major by Brevet for Distinguished Conduct and Public Service in Presence of the Enemy. The presentation speech follows.
"In the summer of 1917, Captain Robert H. Wilder went abroad as one of a commission of three officers sent at the request of the Eastern Department to in- vestigate and report on anti-aircraft artillery. After reporting to General Pershing personally, at Chaumont, Captain Wilder was sent to the French Anti-Aircraft Artillery School at Arnouville where he rendered himself invaluable, not only to the Commission but to the American officers who were endeavoring to form an Anti- Aircraft School in conjunction with the French. An expert engineer, with a pro- found knowledge of fuses, shells, explosives and range finding instruments, Captain Wilder sketched French material so that it could be duplicated, which sketches we used not only to start the American School in France, but were used at the Anti- Aircraft School at Fort Monroe.
"On or about October 18, 1917, Captain Wilder went to the French front north of Chateau Thierry and Fismes along Chemin des Dames near Craonne, where the French were getting ready for their attack on Laon. The first night that he arrived he was gassed and was the first American officer gassed in the war. Thereafter, notwithstanding his gassing, he pursued his duties of examining and investigating guns and complex range finding instruments, all the time being under artillery fire from the German trenches, which was very active at that time owing to the impending attack by the French. During all the time Captain Wilder pursued his investigations with the utmost coolness, and paid absolutely no attention to the shell fire, some of which was directed at a battery with which he was stationed. Thereafter the Com- mandant of the Coast Artillery School at Fort Monroe sent to the Adjutant- General of the State of New York, a formal letter of commendation concerning the work of the Commission of which Captain Wilder was a member.
"In recognition of the above services, the State of New York has awarded to you, Captain Robert H. Wilder, 9th Coast Artillery Corps, New York Guard, the Brevet Commission of Major for distinguished conduct and public service in the presence of the enemy, and it gives me the greatest pleasure to hand you your commission at this time."
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CHAPTER TWELVE (II) THE ANTI-AIRCRAFT REPORT
F OR the benefit of those who have not had the opportunity to read the report turned in by the Commission, it may be interesting to know the substance of it. At the time that this report was made it was the only practical and comprehensive infor- mation in existence in this country for the guidance of the Army in its defense against hostile aircraft. It was transmitted to the Adjutant General of the State of New York, and under his instruc- tions was delivered by Major Stoddard and Captain Wilder in person to General McCain, the Adjutant-General of the Army. The Commission was highly complimented by various Generals and the report transmitted to Fort Monroe, where it was used as the basis of a text-book for the training of officers in the combatant forces. The following pages give in general terms the substance of the report and discussion of the problem of anti-aircraft defense.
Anti-aircraft artillery in its present form has been a development of this war. It has grown out of the necessities of the moment and by slow degrees. At the beginning of the War there was no such artillery and German planes used to sweep down over the Allied trenches and drop bombs on the infantry. In order to prevent such attacks, machine guns were stationed just back of the infantry trenches and their fire forced the hostile aeroplane to fly higher. This height was not sufficient, however, and field-guns were installed on make-shift mounts in especially prepared trenches behind the machine guns. No great improvement has been made on this method except in the mounting. The usual guns are the ordinary French seventy-fives placed on special mounts. They correspond nearly to our three-inch guns and have a range of approximately four miles. Such a range obliges the enemy aero- planes to rise to a height of about eighteen thousand feet.
The French guns fire with extreme rapidity, sometimes as high as twenty-five shots per minute, and the German guns fire more
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slowly. But this disadvantage was offset by the greater number of German guns.
The anti-aircraft artillery serves three purposes :
(1) It acts in an offensive way in bringing down or frightening off enemy planes which are trying to take observations along the front.
(2) It obtains information in regard to the movement of enemy planes and is thus a valuable addition to the Intelligence Depart- ment of the Army.
(3) It defends a city or a certain specified area and prevents the enemy from dropping bombs-at least accurately.
An aircraft fleet is made up of various types of machines. Cer- tain planes are bombing machines, equipped especially to drop bombs on cities, forts, enemy trenches and workshops. Other machines are for the specific purpose of taking photographs of en- emy positions. It is this function that has caused the aeroplane ser- vice to be termed the eyes of the army. Other machines are for the purpose of guiding the firing of the heavy artillery. The three types are interchangeable and may be used for any one of the three purposes. Such planes mount to a great height above the trenches and direct the fire of their own artillery. Still other machines are fighting machines only. It is their business to cooperate with the anti-aircraft artillery in preventing the approach of enemy aero- planes or in preventing them from leaving the ground. The escadrilles are made up of several types of machine, the photo, observation, or bomb-dropping machines, which are slow-flying planes and which are protected by a number of fighting machines. When a fleet is composed entirely of rapid flying or fighting ma- chines, its object is to attack the enemy planes in their own territory or which have crossed the line and are taking observations, or which are on their way to bomb a city.
The first business of the anti-aircraft artillery is to cooperate with these latter machines in preventing enemy aeroplanes from crossing the lines and taking observations. If such planes cannot
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approach near enough to take photographs, the enemy is kept in the dark or, to use the popular term, his eyes are put out.
In addition to the field-guns already mentioned, and which are mounted on fixed mounts, the French in the beginning used auto- cannon or seventy-fives mounted on special automobile mounts which could be moved rapidly from place to place. These guns were moved toward a threatened point and the necessary instru- ments installed upon their arrival. It was soon found, however, that the attacking aeroplanes usually made a feint toward a given point and when the auto-cannon rushed up, or while they were still under way toward that point, the aeroplanes changed their course and attacked from a diagonally opposite direction, with the result that the auto-cannon were on the side opposite from the attack and were perfectly useless. The use of such auto-cannon was after- wards developed at the front, however, where a number of posi- tions are arranged in advance and the cannon were moved from one place to another every day. After the anti-aircraft gun had fired for a few hours the Germans usually got the position and pre- pared to bombard it the following day. With the use of auto- cannon it is possible to shift this position so often that it is practi- cally impossible for the enemy to find the anti-aircraft artillery. The positions are prepared in advance and the organization has been so perfected that guns and instruments can be installed and ready to open accurate fire within five minutes of the time of their arrival.
In firing at an aeroplane from the ground, two gun pointers are used, one for lateral and one for vertical deflection. This means that the sights are kept pointed directly at the target by constantly training the gun. All corrections for drift, time of flight, etc., are made on special instruments by other operators. These instruments move the sights in accordance with the corresponding amount in order to keep the sights pointed at the target. The instruments on the gun by which such a result is obtained may be compared to the ordinary slide-rule as they mechanically add and substract and reduce the corrections, which are set on the various scales, to a
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simple movement of the sights one way or another. Both the lateral and verticle deflections vary with the speed of the target, the time of flight of the projectile and the usual secondary correc- tions for wind, drift, etc., and angle of approach of the target. Relatively speaking, it is impossible for the aviator to change his speed or his altitude rapidly and it is assumed that these factors will be constant during the time of flight of the projectile. The vertical and lateral deflections are obtained under this assumption, and later corrections for drift, wind, area of the day, etc., are set off on the secondary correction scales.
The angle of approach is the angle made by the symmetrical axis of the target (the fusilage) with the vertical plane of sight. When no wind is blowing, the fusilage points in the same direction as that in which the plane is moving, but when a wind is blowing across the long axis of the aeroplane, the line of the fusilage does not coincide with the line of flight of the plane. The head of the plane is on the line of flight of the machine, but the tail, due to the pressure of the wind swings to one side. Therefore, the angle of approach is not the intersection of the path of the aeroplane with the plane of sight except when there is no wind. This angle of approach is sometimes measured by instruments which are extremely accurate or it may be estimated by the battery com- mander.
The speed of the target is also measured by special instruments, although if the type of plane is known, its speed can be estimated by the battery commander. A skillful Frenchman is able to tell the make of a plane when it is still no more than a speck in the sky. The altitude is obtained by various methods, some employing a long base line and others an instrument similar to the Barr and Stroud. The altitude and other required data is continually meas- ured or estimated during fire. Fuse-setter range also enters in. This quantity regulates the point of burst of the shell.
Suppose in horizontal or ordinary field firing the fuse was set at twenty-one seconds. Ordinarily this would explode the shell at about 6,000 yards in a horizontal plane. We could still have the
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same fuse-setting and yet elevate the gun corresponding to the "fuse- setter range" and have the shell still travel the required twenty-one seconds and yet burst only 3,000 yards away. In the first case the shrapnel would perhaps just skim the ground glancing from stones and do considerable damage. In the second case, it would simply bury itself in the ground. There would be no point in ordinary field fighting in firing shrapnel 3,000 yards with a twenty-one sec- ond fuse setting, but there is a great deal of point in using the "fuse-setter range" in firing at aeroplanes where the shell bursts at a point 3,000 yards or so in the air.
A hostile aeroplane usually appears at a height of about six thousand meters and, as it is advisable for tactical reasons to open fire as soon as possible, fire is usually commenced at such a distance that the time of flight of the projectile is from eighteen to twenty seconds. The gun can be fired at a rate of twenty-five shots a minute. This means that there are four or five shots on the way by the time the first one bursts. As the plane moves nearly a thousand yards during this time and as it can move in three dimen- sions, it is obvious that the problem is to hit a twenty-foot cross- twenty feet being the spread of the aeroplane wings-in a sphere of a half-mile radius. The aviator may decide during this time to change his course in any of the three dimensions. The popular idea of shooting at aeroplanes is that it is like shooting a bird on the wing. In bird shooting, however, the time of flight of the shot or bullet is almost negligible and sufficient correction to obtain accuracy can be made by eye. The aeroplane on the other hand is going at a speed of about 135 miles an hour and the distance from the gun is many thousand feet.
The first shots of the eight or ten which are fired at the plane are carefully calculated to burst along the path the target is taking with the idea that both shell and aeroplane will arrive simultan- eously. The others of the group are planted along the path that the battery commander surmises will be taken by the aviator in case he escapes the first shots. With five shots in the air before the first one bursts, it is evident that the element of unexpectedness to
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the aviator is necessary to make aeroplane shooting anything but guess work or luck. It is considered by the French a waste of ammunition to fire more than eight or ten shots at a target from a single gun. If the first few shots fail to hit, the aviator will twist or dive or go off on the wing so that it is simply guesswork to try to predict his movements and fire again before he has laid his next course. The French gunners, being nimble-witted, use clever guess- work and never do the same thing twice. Even so, the best French batteries have only brought down one plane for six thousand shots fired, while the poorest battery of a certain army brought down only one in twenty thousand.
The fact that only one aeroplane is actually brought to earth for every six thousand shots fired is no indication of any lack of usefulness on the part of the anti-aircraft artillery because three or four shots will often cause the hostile aviator to turn back without accomplishing his mission, which may have been an attack on an observation balloon or may have been the taking of important photographs and the discovery of operations behind the lines. Where the anti-aircraft artillery is especially active, sometimes several days go by without the successful approach of an enemy aeroplane over the lines. The efficiency of the French method of diverting anti-aircraft fire at night is illustrated by the experience of a French aviator. A young aviator was ordered to make obser- vations of the German lines. He was instructed to hand in reports at a certain time and place before ascending but, being young, he omitted the red tape. He went over the German lines and when he returned after night-fall he was greeted by fire from the anti- aircraft guns. He retired again over the German lines and re- turned at another point. He was again driven back by his own guns. This happened six or seven times before it occurred to the commander of the battery that there was something wrong. Upon inquiry it was discovered that one of the French aviators was miss- ing and the man was allowed to land. By that time he was practi- cally out of gasoline
As the anti-aircraft crews are obliged to be constantly. on the
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lookout for enemy aeroplanes, it is logical that they should be the ones to record the movements of all planes approaching from enemy territory whether they are able to open fire upon them or not. They thus become a valuable branch of the Intelligence Department. Neither the Infantry nor the Artillery has time to make such observations. They are busy with their own work and the air service itself cannot make records for the same reason, and also because a plane which is clearly visible from the ground fre- quently cannot be seen at all from the air on account of the cloud conditions.
The anti-aircraft artillery also serves in this connection as a guide to friendly aircraft actually in the air. An aviator may pass and repass within a few yards of an opposing machine without see- ing him. It is the function of the anti-aircraft artillery to observe such manoeuvres and report them to the signal officers of the esquadrille. These officers in turn signal the aviator by wireless telephones or telegraphs, by flashlights or by ground signals. These ground signals usually take the form of white sheets laid on the ground in the shape of an arrow, the point showing the course the hostile plane has taken. Even in such comparatively clumsy work as the spreading of large white sheets on the ground, the men are so well drilled that the work is done in remarkably short time. The aviator looking down sees a white arrow suddenly ap- pear on the ground beneath him and changes his course accordingly.
There are, of course, anti-aircraft guns used in the defense both of London and of Paris. When such artillery was first conceived, it was believed that auto mounts could be used and the defenders of the city were pictured as leaping upon their apparatus and rush- ing to the point of attack like firemen going to a fire. They were described as racing through the streets firing as they went. This idea has been used as a recruiting argument. However, in practice it is impossible to fire from a moving machine because such pro- cedure involves the problem of constructing a motor truck suffi- ciently strong to withstand the setback of the gun and no accuracy can be. obtained when firing from such a moving base. The
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machine might take a sudden turn around a corner just as a gun was being fired and the shell would strike the roof of a build- ing or a church tower instead of the enemy. Even auto mounts that could be rushed from place to place have been found to be impractical for reasons described. The enemy can dodge such guns before they are ready to fire. Several instances have occurred where the Germans have attacked a theoretically defended city without a shot being fired at them by the defending gun. This has · led to the withdrawal of auto mounts from the defense of cities and has brought about the installation of fixed mounts for the defense of definite areas. One difficulty in using anti-aircraft guns where raids are infrequent, as they necessarily would be in the case of American cities, is the danger of the falling shrapnel. The question is often asked as to the rate of mortality among the civilian population from falling fragments of friendly shells be- cause, of course, a piece of steel comes down at the same speed at which it goes up. The French answer this question by saying that there are no such cases on record, because everything that goes up is French, while everything that comes down is German. It is well known, however, informally, that many people have been killed by their own guns because, where raids are a novelty, the civil population, instead of retiring to cellars rushes out into the streets to see what is going on. No amount of argument has succeeded in preventing this in Paris.
Even at the end of the war when anti-aircraft defense had been developed considerably beyond the point where this report had been written it was only in its infancy. The use of aeroplanes is bound to become more and more important and in consequence the development of anti-aircraft defense will probably reach greater and greater importance in military strategy. It is therefore a mat- ter of great pride to the Veteran Corps and the Ninth Coast that their officers foresaw this development and were pioneers in aiding this country to a proper consideration of the importance of anti- aircraft defense.
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