Chauffeurs drop in to borrow petrol or to
repair their cars; visiting officers from other stations come to watch
the airship perform. For England has been slow to believe in the
airships, pinning her aeronautical faith to heavier-than-air machines.
She has considered the great expense for building and upkeep of each
of these dirigible balloons--as much as that of fifty aeroplanes--the
necessity of providing hangars for them, and their vulnerability to
attack, as overbalancing the advantages of long range, silence as they
drift with the wind with engines cut off, and ability to hover over a
given spot and thus launch aerial bombs more carefully.
There is a friendly rivalry between the two branches of the air
service, and so far in this war the credit apparently goes to the
aeroplanes. However, until the war is over, and Germany definitely
states what part her Zeppelins have had in both sea and land attacks,
it will be impossible to make any fair comparison.
The officers at the naval air station had their headquarters in the
administration building of the factory, a long brick building facing
the road. Here in a long room with western windows they rested and
relaxed, lined and talked between their adventurous excursions to the
lines.
Day by day these men went out, some in the airship for a
reconnoissance, others to man observation balloons.
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