Anti-Aircraft

The Navy Department announced tests of anti-aircraft fire against a sausage-shaped target, 10 ft. in diameter, 45 ft. long, towed by the Shenandoah at 33 mi. an hour, more than 4,000 ft. up, and fired at by 3-in. guns from the battleship Texas. Six hundred and thirty-five rounds of shrapnel were fired. The target showed 763 holes, 11 made by unexploded shells.

On hearing of these tests, Colonel William Mitchell, onetime Chief of the Army Air Service, now Eighth Corps Air officer at Fort Sam Houston, said to a reporter:

"That's all bunk. It's worse than bunk; it's propaganda issued in a desperate effort to discredit the Air Service.

"When planes attack, they travel about three times 33 miles an hour. There's a little difference in shooting at a slowly moving target and trying to hit one going 100 mi. an hour."