with
airplane spotters, such ships ought to be the very best possible
insurance for American lives and goods on the high seas."

I quote from _The Associated Press_ report from Paris on May 14th
to show the relative importance of aeroplanes in submarine
attacks:

"During the last three months French patrol boats have had twelve
engagements with submarines, French hydroaeroplanes have fought
them thirteen times, and there have been sixteen engagements
between armed merchantmen and submarines."

Henry Woodhouse, one of the most distinguished authorities on
aeronautics in the United States, in his standard _Textbook on
Naval Aeronautics_, published by the Century Company, has
assembled the following data on submarine and aeroplane combats:

"On May 4, 1915, the German Admiralty reported an engagement
between a German dirigible and several British submarines in the
North Sea. The submarines fired on the dirigible without success,
whereas bombs from the dirigible sank one submarine.

"On May 31, 1915, the German Admiralty announced the sinking of a
Russian submarine by bombs dropped by German naval aviators near
Gotland.

"On July 1, 1915, the Austrian submarine U-11 was destroyed in
the Adriatic by a French aeroplane, which swooped suddenly and
dropped three bombs directly on the deck of the submarine. The
craft was destroyed and the entire crew of twenty-five were lost.

"On July 27, 1915, a German submarine in the Dardanelles was
about to launch a torpedo at a British transport filled with
troops and ammunition, when British aviators gave the alarm to
the transport, and immediately began dropping bombs at the
submarine, which had to submerge and escape hurriedly, without
launching its torpedo.

"On August 19, 1915, the Turkish War Office stated that an Allied
submarine had been sunk in the Dardanelles by a Turkish
aeroplane.

"On August 26, the Secretary of the British Admiralty announced
that Squadron Commander Arthur W. Bigsworth in a single-handed
attack bombed and destroyed a German submarine off Ostend.

"Lieutenant Viney received the Victoria Cross and Lieutenant de
Sincay was recommended for the Legion of Honour for having flown
over a German submarine and destroyed it with bombs off the
Belgian coast on N