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target that was not visible from the battery's ground observation post. Such "reglages", as the French called them, were generally arranged ahead of time for a definite hour. I would fly over the battery headquarters and radio down, by Morse code, the call number of the battery to signify that I was all set. They would put out a set of panels that mean "We get you", or [[strikethrough]] "unrerstood" [[/strikethrough]] ^[[insertion]] understood" [[/insertion]]. (I forget what that signal was). Then we would circle over the battery headquarters until they put out a pair of panels looking like this: [[image: hand-drawn square and rectangle]] That meant "The battery is ready". I would then direct the pilot to head toward the target, at a slight angle so that I could see it between the wings, and send down three dashes in Morse code. That meant "Fire!" The battery would fire a salvo; that is, its four guns would fire in succession with a pause between shots. I would spot the four bursts in relation to the target and radio down, again in Morse code, the corrections. We would repeat this routine over again until the battery was satisfied with its adjustment.

I have indicated here one way we had of communicating with the ground. We had a radio sending set, Morse code, but no receiver.

Our radio aerial was a length of wire that ordinarily was kept rolled on a big spool inside the plane. We had an assigned wavelength for sending. This meant that, once the plane was in the air, a certain length of aerial was unwound and allowed to trail in the air behind us. It varied from 50 to 200 feet, according to the designated wave-length. There was a lead weight at the end of the aerial, but in flight the aerial trailed almost horizontally behand with only a slight downward crook at the weighted end. Now and then an observer would forget to wind in his aerial before landing, and the aerial would get wiped off.

We had two other ways of getting messages to the ground. One [[strikethrough]] wa [[/strikethrough]] was to put a written report in a tin can, with a cloth streamer attached, and drop it at an assigned spot just outside division headquarters. That was the way we reported routine [[strikethrough]] routine [[/strikethrough]] reconnaissances. It was also the way wereported [[hand-drawn line to indicate break between "we" and "reported"]] the kind of operation I am about to describe.