THE AIR FORCE IN THE SALIENT.
The Ypres Times.
223
"The men who march often aimire and extol the courage of the men who fly,
and they are rightbut the men who fly, unless they are very thoughtless, know that
the heaviest burden of war, its squalor and its tediousness, is borne on the devoted
shoulders of the infantryman."Sir Walter Raleigh, History of the War in
the Air." Volume I.
In August, 1914, when the Expeditionary Force crossed to France, four squadrons
of the Royal Flying Corps, consisting in all of 105 officers, 755 other ranks and 63 aeroplanes,
took the field. In the four years and three months of the war the air service grew and
YPRES IN THE SIMMER OF 1917.
multiplied a hundredfold. At the date of the Armistice, November n, 1918, there were
operating in France and Belgium, ninety-nine squadrons of the Royal Air Force.
After the battle of Aisne, 1914, the Royal Flying Corps moved north with the
Expeditionary Force, from Fêre-en-Tardenois by way of Abbeville, to St. Omer, where
they were established by October 12. A good deal of reconnaissance was carried on by the
squadrons during the northward move of the army. At the beginning machines carried
out their work practically unmolested by the enemy, but by the first battle of Ypres the
enemy took more trouble than usual to interfere with our aircraft, and employed an
