Mimicry

ARMY & NAVY

AIRDROME RAIDED--FOURTEEN ENEMY PLANES DESTROYED COLUMBUS R. R. YARD WRECKED CINCINNATI WIPED OUT RAID REPULSED--FOUR BOMBERS DOWN--CREWS KILLED--OUR LOSSES SLIGHT

Such would have been newspaper headlines last week if the Army's air war game over Ohio had been real instead of mimic.

As it was, 200 planes, divided between Reds and Blues, attacked, repulsed, dipped and dived over imaginary battlefields on which moved some 800,000 troops, seen only by the umpires.

Most spectacular of the air maneuvers was the Blue raid on the Red army supply base at Columbus. Fifteen giant bombing planes screened by 15 pursuit craft and preceded by 18 attack planes executed this theoretical destruction. In a 100-second diving assault the attack planes delivered an effective fire equal to an infantry division of 30,000 men supported by divisional artillery. The Red defense, surprised, was unable to down a single bomber. Later in the day, a combined Blue and Red air force thrice circled Cincinnati, theoretically dropped hundreds of bombs, wiped it out.

Preparations were made for sending a Keystone twin-motored bomber from Ohio to "destroy" lower Manhattan at night.

The plane will refuel twice en route without landing.

But not all the havoc was on paper. Real tragedy swept the clouds when two planes, flying in close formation in the simulated air raid on Columbus, collided at 10,000 ft. Lieut. Edward L. Meadow was chewed to bits by the propeller of a plane piloted by Lieut. A. Fred Solter. Lieut. Solter, parachuting for his life, was carried to a hospital.