New Haven (Connecticut) ? Des soucoupes volantes boutent les avions Axis hors du ciel.
Ce sont les astucieuses petites cibles d'argile noir en forme de soucoupe sur lesquelles les tireurs en série des U. S. apprennent d'abord à tirer avec un fusil sur la zone de tir et trap avant they are turned loose against enemy war birds with .50 caliber heavy machine guns. Shotgun shooting at clay pigeons teaches gunners to "lead," that is, shoot ahead of fast flying targets.
Gen. Henry H. Arnold, chief of army air forces, gives the shotgun training program credit for the remarkable marksmanship ot his gunners who knock down from four to seven Axis planes for every one we lose.
The sport of trapshooting, which has now become an air force training "must," was invented in 1876 by Adam H. Bogardus, one of America's earliest crack shots with a shotgun. Bogardus first shot at tree-inch glass balls thrown 10 to 15 feet straight up in the air at a distance of 18 yards from the shooter.
Then Came the 'Saucers.'
When Bogardus found it too easy to hit the balls with a shotgun at this distance, he perfected a trap to throw the balls from 18 to 35 yards and formulated rules to govern trap-shooting, using three traps set five yards apart, each throwing a ball in a different direction.
Glass balls were relatively expensive, so in 1880 George Ligowsky invented the flat flying bird-simulating target and a trap to throw it. Thanks to many subsequent developments and millions of shooters, the sport reached the point where the air force adopted it for trainign purposes.
In today's trap game the "saucers" are four and a quarter inches in diameter and are thrown at various angles and directions from covered trap houses at a distance of 18 yards in front of the shooter. In skeet, the "birds" are thrown from two "houses," a ligh house and a low house, situated on a semicircular range, and the birds are host at from eight different positions around a half circle.
Develops New Wrinkle.
Before Pearl Harbor when aerial gunnery schools were building their training programs, and expressed interest in trapshooting from moving vehicles, J. Mowell Hawkins of Winchester, are of the country's best known trapshooters, developed a new wrinkle called "motion station trapshooting." This idea, with variations, is now being used in many U. S. training schools.
Gunnery trainees on truck driven around a snakelike road, shoot at clay pigeons that are thrown from unexpected spots. This now military sport of super-trap teaches gunners to take split-second aim in almost any direction.
Ordinary 12-gauge shotguns are used in the air force trainign program. Winchester recently presented the millionth model 12 shotgun of this type to General Arnold, who, before his assembled staff and a group of air force trainees, promptly knocked off a string of clay pigeons as fast as they were thrown from the trap. It was no surprise.
"Thanks to our millions of peacetime shooters, America started the war with a huge reservoir of potential aerial gunners," says General Arnold. "And we're turning them into crack shots today."