Part 7 (1/2)

Although the officers and instructors warned that air observation and range-finding was by far the most dangerous of all artillery service, seventy-five per cent of the young officers who were eligible for the work volunteered for it. This required a two-thirds weeding out, and insured the very pick of men for the air crews.

The air service with artillery was made over almost entirely by the French between the time of the war's beginning and America's entrance.

All the old visual aids were abolished, such as smoke-pointers and rockets, and the telephone and wireless were installed in their stead.

The observation-balloons had the telephone service, and the planes had wireless.

By these means the guns were first fired and then reported on. The general system of range-finding was: ”First fire long, then fire short, then split the bracket.” This was the joint job of planes and gunners--one not to be despised as a feat.

In fact, artillery is, of all services, the one most dependent on co-operation. It is always a joint job, but the joining must be done among many factors.

Its effectiveness depends first upon the precision of the mathematical calculation which goes before the pull of the lanyard. This calculation is complicated by the variety of types of guns and sh.e.l.ls, and, in the case of howitzers, by the variable behavior of charges of different size and power. But these are things that can be learned with patience, and require knowledge rather than inspiration.

It is when the air service enters that inspiration enters with it.

Observation must be accurate, in spite of weather, visibility, enemy camouflage, and everything else. More than that, the observer in the plane must keep himself safe--often a matter of sheer genius.

The map-maker must do his part, so that targets not so elusive as field-guns and motor-emplacements can be found without much help from the air.

Finally, the artillery depends, even more than any other branch of the service, on the rapidity with which its wants can be filled from the rear. The mobility of the big pieces, and their constant connections with ammunition-stores, are matters depending directly on the training of the artillerymen.

These, then, were the things in which the Americans were either tested or trained. Their mathematics were A1, as has been noted, and their familiarity with existing models of big guns sufficient to enable them to pick up the new types without long effort.

They had a few weeks of heavy going with pad and pencil, then they were led to the giant stores of French ammunition--more than any of them had ever seen before--and told to open fire. One dramatic touch exacted by the French instructors was that the guns should be pointed toward Germany, no matter how impotent their distance made them.

Long lanes, up to 12,000 metres, were told off for the ranges. The training was intensive, because at that time there was a half-plan to put the artillery first into the battle-line. In any case it is easier to make time on secondary problems than on primary.

Throughout September, while the artillerymen grew in numbers as well as proficiency, the mastering of gun types was perfected, and the theory of aim was worked out on paper.

Late in the month the French added more guns, chief among them being a monster mounted on railway-trucks whose projectile weighed 1,800 pounds.

The artillerymen named her ”Mosquito,” ”because she had a sting,”

although she had served for 300 charges at Verdun. It was not long before every type of gun in the French Army, and many from the British, were lined up in the artillery camp, being expertly pulled apart and rea.s.sembled.

By the time the artillery went into battle with the infantry, failing in their intention to go first alone, but nevertheless first in actual fighting, they were able to give a fine account of themselves. By the time they had got back to camp and were training new troops from their own experience, they were the centre of an extraordinary organization.

The rolling of men from camp to battle and back again, training, retraining, and fighting in the circle, with an increasing number of men able to remain in the line, and a constantly increasing number of new men permitted to come in at the beginning, ground out an admirable system before the old year was out.

The fact that the artillery-school could not take its material raw did not make the hitches it otherwise would, chiefly, of course, because of the coast defense, and somewhat because American college men were found to have a fine substratum of technical knowledge which artillery could turn to account.

After all the routine was fairly learned, and there had been a helpful interim in the line, the artillery practised on some specialties, partly of their own contribution, and partly those suggested by the other armies.

One of these, the most picturesque, was the shattering of the ”pill-boxes,” German inventions for staying in No Man's Land without being hit.

A ”pill-box” is a tiny concrete fortress, set up in front of the trenches, usually in groups of fifteen to twenty. They have slot-like apertures, through which Germans do their sniping. They are supposed to be immune from anything except direct hit by a huge sh.e.l.l. But the American artillery camp worked out a way of getting them--with luck.

Each aperture, through which the German inmates sighted and shot, was put under fire from automatic rifles, coming from several directions at once, so that it was indiscreet for the Boche to stay near his windows, on any slant he could devise. Under cover of this rifle barrage, bombers crept forward, and at a signal the rifle fire stopped, and the bombers threw their destruction in.

All these accomplishments, which did not take overlong to learn, enhanced the natural value of the American artilleryman. He became, in a short time, the pride of the army and a warmly welcomed mainstay to the Allies.

Major-General Peyton C. March, who took the artillery to France and commanded them in their days of organization, before he was called back to be Chief of Staff at Was.h.i.+ngton, was always credited, by his men, with being three-fourths of the reason why they made such a showing.