



Produced by Chris Curnow, Joseph Cooper, Barbara Kosker
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
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CAVALRY OF THE CLOUDS




[Illustration: "CONTACT"

CAPTAIN ALAN BOTT, M. C.

OF THE BRITISH ROYAL FLYING CORPS]




  CAVALRY OF THE CLOUDS




  BY

  "CONTACT"

  (CAPT. ALAN BOTT, M.C.)




  _With an introduction by_

  MAJOR-GENERAL W. S. BRANCKER

  (Deputy Director-General of Military Aeronautics)




  [Illustration]




  GARDEN CITY - NEW YORK
  DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
  1918




  Copyright, 1917, by
  Doubleday, Page & Company

  _All rights reserved,
  including that of translation into foreign languages,
  including the Scandinavian_




  DEDICATED

  TO

  THE FALLEN OF UMPTY SQUADRON, R.F.C.

  JUNE-DECEMBER 1916




PREFACE


Of the part played by machines of war in this war of machinery the wider
public has but a vague knowledge. Least of all does it study the
specialised functions of army aircraft. Very many people show mild
interest in the daily reports of so many German aeroplanes destroyed, so
many driven down, so many of ours missing, and enraged interest in the
reports of bomb raids on British towns; but of aerial observation, the
main _raison d'etre_ of flying at the front, they own to nebulous ideas.

As an extreme case of this haziness over matters aeronautic I will quote
the lay question, asked often and in all seriousness: "Can an aeroplane
stand still in the air