Flying Cameras Map America for War

By ANDREW R. BOONE

FROM aerial photographs snapped by giant bombers soaring four miles above the earth, U. S. Army engineers are compiling maps that will serve as eyes for our armed forces if they ever have to wage a defensive war on American soil.

Flying out of Fort Lewis, Wash., the camera planes have recently been engaged in photographing all unmapped areas between the Cascade Mountains and the Pacific, from Puget Sound to the Siskiyou Mountains of California. With their multiple cameras they make five pictures at a crack, one straight down and four at angles ahead, astern, and to the sides. Finished prints of the photographs are sent to the 29th Engineers at Portland, Ore. Here, in two old school buildings, they are turned into topographical maps showing all important features that would figure in wartime plans.