Frequent reference has been made in telegrams from Europe to the numerous "photographic raids" made by British and French aeroplanes over German positions, especially the Siegfried Line, in the task of observation preliminary to active military operations. In fact," coupled with propaganda flights, in this indeterminate stage of the hostilities these have constituted the bulk of air activity by each side. Intelligence of military positions was a limited and uncertain science before the aeroplane took to the camera, but now the open panorama of the battlefield, in spite of the most cunning camouflage to disguise hidden objectives, is a thing which can be obtained with extreme ex-attitude with the aid of the camera. Vertical and horizontal aspects of objects present vastly different facets in the mechanical eye and the flying camera—for such are the new aerial observation machines—is as important a unit of military strength as is the bomb or the machine gun. In the early stages of the last war when airman tackled each other with rifles and pistols, the modern type of bomb had just been invented, photography was an amateurish affair. It meant a man leaning over the side of the machine and doing his best, steadying himself against the side of the cockpit, to take a picture. Since then there have been great improvements and the camera is built into the bottom of the fuselage just as machine guns are permanently mounted in the wings. The aeroplane becomes simply a camera and, in peacetime, has resulted in tremendous addition to mapping. In the United States, especially, huge areas have been mapped and charted from the air and unknown details have been added to geographic knowledge by the employment of the camera which, with the exception of some of the modernist types of portrait studios, does not lie, In modern air warfare the camera goes along with the bombing machine for evidence is needed in more certain terms than human visual observation, of the results of the raid. Things apparently unimportant judged from the ground become immensely revealing of movements and activities viewed from the air, and the amazing flights of British aeroplanes over the hurriedly-constructed Siegfried me appear to have yielded results of tremendous importance to the future military plans of the Allies.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.