A
German attack developed, and the airman likens the enemy's advance
formation to a "large human tadpole"--a long dense column with the head
spread out in front.
Evidently the anti-aircraft guns, though rather terrifying, do very
little damage. Airmen have had shells burst all round them for a long
time without being hurt. Of course they are careful to fly at a high
altitude. When struck by shrapnel, however, an aeroplane (one witness
says) "just crumples up like a broken egg." On the other hand, bombs
dropped from aeroplanes do great damage, if properly directed. A petrol
bomb was dropped by an English airman at night into a German bivouac
with alarming results, and another thrown at a cavalry column struck an
ammunition wagon and killed fifteen men. A French airman wiped out a
cavalry troop with a bomb, and the effect of the steel arrows used by
French aviators is known to be damaging. The German bombs thrown by
Zeppelins and Taube aeroplanes on Antwerp and Paris do not appear to
have much disturbed either the property or equanimity of the
inhabitants. So far as aerial excursions are concerned the most
brilliant exploit is undoubtedly that of Flight-Lieutenant C.H. Collet,
of the Naval Wing of the British Flying Corps, who, with a fleet of five
aeroplanes swept across the German frontier and, hovering over
Duesseldorf, dropped three bombs with unerring effect upon the Zeppelin
sheds.
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