by Alan Clark
This year, too, saw the impact of America on the air war. At the outbreak of the First World War in Europe in 1914, only sixty-five citizens of the United States held pilot’s licences, and only thirty-five of these were in the Army. There was no air force worthy of the name, no machines, no operational theory, no command structure, no industrial specialization. Even more surprising, the tremendous enthusiasm which had kept aviation in a state of constant ferment in Europe was completely absent in the country of its origin.
The military value of aeroplanes had been totally discounted – it seemed – as a result of their performance in the Mexican War of 1913. The ten frail and unreliable Curtis biplanes that had accompanied the soldiers on that occasion had proved more of a liability than a help, breaking down, having forced landings and diverting soldiers and cavalry on the ground from their traditional tasks to aid the stranded pilots. This episode effectively closed the minds of the military who were naturally delighted to have their preconceived theories confirmed. As a result there had been absolutely no forward planning of aircraft design and development. Aeroplanes might fly the Channel (in one direction) but they were never going to fly the Atlantic. They could be ignored.
In July of 1914 an Act was passed by Congress which created the Aviation Section of the Signal Corps and authorized a strength of sixty officers and two hundred and sixty enlisted men. This was little more than formal recognition that the aeroplane existed and might possibly have a military use. But its status, as an ancillary of a subordinate branch, was emphasized by the tiny grant and the fact that only two commissioned ranks were envisaged in the pay scale. The previous year flying training had taken place at the airfield at College Park in Maryland – styled the Signal Corps Aviation School. But of the twenty-eight aircraft attached to the school, nine became total losses and over a quarter of the forty men who had received flying instruction lost their lives in accidents. By the time war broke out in Europe the eleven remaining Curtis-Wright ‘pusher’ aircraft at the school had been condemned on safety grounds and the Army had only five aeroplanes left, all in highly suspect condition. Flying training was discontinued and recruitment discouraged.
Fortunately for the United States, Glen Curtis continued to operate his private school at San Diego, California, using the ‘J’ or ‘Jenny’ – which was to be standardized as the Army’s basic trainer in years to come.
In 1915 the Chief of the Signals section, General Scriven, recommended a force of eighteen squadrons (each of twelve planes). But no action was taken and even two years later when the United States actually entered the war, the Aviation Section had only 131 officers and 1,000 enlisted men. In its total of 250 aircraft there were none that could be rated as proper combat types in the sense that these had evolved by the standards of European fighting. There were only two air officers on the General Staff in Washington.
Within a few weeks of entering the war the American attitude to the Air Arm had changed completely, and the first steps were taken that were to secure for the United States a pre-eminence in the aero-industrial field that they have held until today. A programme was drafted calling for the production of 22,625 aeroplanes and 44,000 engines backed by an eighty per cent spares inventory. On 24 July Congress voted 640 million dollars for military aeronautics, the largest sum ever appropriated for a single purpose up to that time. The humble Aviation Section was scheduled for expansion to 345 combat squadrons with supporting formations. The American aircraft industry barely existed at this time. Its total production for the past ten years had been less than 800 aeroplanes. But its response was characteristic. The standard aero-engine, the Liberty, was designed by Jesse Vincent and J.G. Hall in five days. The prototype engine was complete with all accessories for testing in twenty-eight days. By the end of the war this engine was coming off the production line at 4,200 a week. The performance of Vincent and Hall, and of Douglas who adapted the DH 4 to take the Liberty engine in a single weekend, makes one regret that the United States had not the experience in designing aircraft that they had in designing machinery. Unfortunately, production plans were, as ever, over-optimistic, and very little of American manufacture saw combat in Europe. Even the DH 4, already mentioned, proved to have many shortcomings when tested in Europe, and was further delayed from its combat début while modifications were carried out. Even then it acquired an unenviable reputation as the ‘flaming coffin’.
The United States’ industrial capacity was more easily capable of tackling its enormous programme than was the Air Service in training the necessary crew. Predictably there was a flood of recruits, but ground schools, airfields, instructors and training aircraft were woefully short. The authorities’ requirements for a pilot would certainly have excluded many of the European aces:
The candidate should be naturally athletic and have a reputation for reliability, punctuality and honesty. He should have a cool head in emergencies, good eye for distance, keen ear for familiar sounds, steady hand and sound body with plenty of reserve; he should be quick-witted, highly intelligent and tractable. Immature, high-strung, overconfident, impatient candidates are not desired.
A further twenty-seven flying fields were constructed in the United States to handle the training programme (only three had existed at the outbreak of the war) but for advanced training aircrew had to go to Europe where, in France, the United States set up its own airfields and Aviation Instruction Centers.
It was not until the spring of 1918 that the American single-seater (‘Pursuit’) squadrons were operational, although the 1st Aero-Squadron had been in France since 1917 and, equipped with Breguets, had been flying reconnaissance missions since the early spring of 1918. The French and British commanders had hoped to integrate the American squadrons piecemeal, as they were formed, into existing allied units.
The American commanders on the other hand, wished to preserve their independence and looked forward to the day when their Air Force and Army could operate together as a whole. With this in mind the first arrivals were kept in the Toul sector, in the Vosges – a region that had seen no serious fighting at any time since spring 1915. The pilots of these first two squadrons (the 94th and 95th) had been subjected to a variety of delays and obstructions by the authorities. The French had put them through a whole sequence of advanced flying, gunnery and combat schools and when they were finally issued with their new Spad single-seaters they found that these had been sent down without guns. Undaunted, the reckless Americans began to fly their patrols unarmed – a practice which would have led to disaster in any other sector of the front.
By the middle of June the American strength had risen to a level where it was possible to constitute both an observation group and a pursuit group and these, together with some French units, moved north to the Château-Thierry sector. For a number of historic reasons – notably the connection via the Lafayette Escadrille and the Americans already serving in French units who had been re-posted to all-American squadrons, and also the influence of the French purchasing commissions – the United States Air Force was chiefly influenced by the French and largely ignored the British. This was regrettable as at this stage the French Air Service was suffering a decline in morale. Now with their move to Château-Thierry, the Americans found themselves flying against hardened professionals who enjoyed the advantages of experience and superior aircraft.
Just as the Lafayette squadron had first enjoyed a period of ‘phoney war’ so had the regular American units made the most of the Crillon Bar, the Château landings and the showy traditions of dress and behaviour that the flying community had established. But there were harsher lessons that could only be learned in combat; recognizing decoys, allowing for wind drift, vigilance against surprise, the proneness of guns to jam and controls to bind at freezing altitudes – these things took their toll of the Americans as they had of others before them. The ‘Scarlet Scouts’ and the ‘Checkers’ with their ‘solid crimson leader’ (presumably Jastas 11 and 34) soon burned their reputation across the American squadrons
and losses mounted alarmingly.
But the Jastas moved up and down the front. Sometimes they would be absent for up to ten days at a time, and throughout the summer of 1918 the American strength mounted. By the time of the Saint Mihiel offensive in August, General William Mitchell, the American commander, had over 1,500 aeroplanes under his control. (Not all of these were exclusively United States formations and they included nine bomber squadrons from the RAF.) In the closing weeks of the war the American scores increased dramatically and when the Armistice was signed there were over forty-five American combat squadrons at the front with a strength of 740 aircraft. Against losses of 289 they claimed to have destroyed 781 Germans, a kill ratio of almost 3:1. The total strength of the American Air Force had already risen to over 14,000 aeroplanes and there is little doubt that it would have matched that of the Royal Air Force in 1919 and carried the major burden of air fighting from that time onward.
The American Air Force achievement is comparable only to the scale of their Space Programme in the ‘sixties. Starting from nothing – or indeed a minus factor – in comparison with their competitors, they developed production, personnel, command and design structures on a scale and with a rapidity that towered over all others. Their contribution in the closing months of the war was significant not only in terms of morale, but in the way in which the hard-pressed Jastas were taxed beyond their strength by these brave new arrivals, and German air cover at critical points of the front became increasingly imperfect and unpredictable.
German strength in March 1918 had been 4,050 aircraft of all types, but wastage had been severe during the five German offensives. For example, they had lost 659 machines (including 182 single-seaters) between 20 March, the beginning of the Second Battle of the Somme, and 29 April, the date of the end of their second offensive, the Battle of the Lys. More important, however, was the wastage in personnel, especially as many of those lost were irreplaceable men such as Manfred von Richthofen and the leaders and developers of the Schlastas. Even if the German flying schools had been able to turn out the numbers needed as replacements, they could not provide the skills that years of active service had produced. On 8 June 1918 the German Air Force had only 2,551 pilots on its rolls.
Two months later, when the final Allied offensives of the war started with the Battle of Amiens on 8 August (which Erich von Ludendorff, the German army’s Chief-of-Staff, called ‘the Black Day of the German army’) the RAF had 1,782 aircraft (this figure rose to 1,799, including 747 fighters, by the time of the Armistice), the Americans 740 and the French over 3,000 of all types. From 8 August to the date of the Armistice, 11 November, the Allied armies rolled forward, covered in the air by forces modelled on the Schlastas of the spring. There was nothing the Germans could do. Not only were the Germans outnumbered, they were also desperately short of fuel and lubricants, good quality linen to cover their machines, dope to tauten and air-proof them and skilled aircrew to make the best use of what they had. For all except the last the Germans had the unrelenting Allied blockade to thank, and for the last the offensive tactics pursued by Trenchard and other Allied Air Force leaders. It is ironic that it was during this period of defeat that Germany’s best fighter of the war, the Fokker D VII, was available in its greatest numbers. But not even this magnificent fighter’s performance could cope with the ever increasing and improving swarms of Allied aircraft, both fighters and two-seaters, crossing the retreating German lines.
The war did not end with a climactic final battle in which the German Air Force was wiped out, but in its gradual decline and death from fuel starvation and inferiority of numbers. After years of struggle, at times against a foe superior in numbers and equipment, the Allied forces could rove with relative impunity over the collapsing German armies. The German Air Force had lost 5,853 men killed, 7,302 wounded and 2,751 missing and prisoner, together with 3,128 aeroplanes, 546 balloons and 26 airships. The Royal Flying Corps, Royal Naval Air Service and Royal Air Force had lost 6,166 men killed, 7,245 wounded and 3,212 missing and prisoner.
Chapter Ten
Vapour Trails
And two things have altered not
Since first the world began –
The beauty of the wild green earth
And the bravery of man.
Cameron Wilson (killed in action 1918)
With the shortening of the days in the late autumn of 1917, the hectic pace of aerial activity slackened and the Germans took stock of their position. Twice in the war a technical innovation, an aircraft far ahead of its adversaries, had given them the means to achieve a total superiority. Yet, from a combination of secondary factors this had each time eluded them. And just as the reign of the Fokker Eindekker with its synchronized Parabellum had been cut short by the arrival in the nick of time of the ‘Fees’ and the Nieuports, so the domination of the Albatros had been first shaken and then eclipsed by increasing numbers of SE 5As, Camels and Spads.
Although there were brilliant individual exceptions on the Allied side, it is probably true to say that the general level of tactical skill and flying expertise was higher in the closed fraternal societies of the Jagdstaffeln. Here the pilots were true specialists, their task was to seek out and destroy enemy planes free from the encumbrance of escort or ground-support roles; the manner in which they were rotated over different sectors of the front widened their experience; the way in which they were concentrated often gave them a local superiority of numbers in battle which did not reflect the overall strengths of the two sides; off-duty discussion of techniques and innovations was encouraged and there was a free and ready traffic of ideas between design staffs and the pilots in the field.
But it was now becoming apparent that their squadron equipment was a handicap and leading to an unnecessary wastage of good pilots. Neither the Albatros D V, which entered service in mid-1917, nor the Pfalz D III of autumn 1917 could match the developing SE 5A with a good pilot (in this case, Britain’s top ace, with seventy-three victories, ‘Mick’ Mannock):
… he had a fine set-to, while his patrol watched the master at work. It was a wonderful sight. First they waltzed around one another like a couple of turkey-cocks, Mick being tight on his adversary’s tail. Then the Pfalz [piloted by Leutnant Van Ira] half-rolled and fell a few hundred feet beneath him. Mick followed, firing as soon as he got into position. The Hun then looped – Mick looped too, coming out behind and above his opponent. The Pfalz then spun – Mick spun also, firing as he spun. This shooting appeared to me a waste of ammunition. The Hun eventually pulled out; Mick was fast on his tail – they were now down to 4,000 feet. The Pfalz now started twisting and turning which was a sure sign of ‘wind-up’. After a sharp burst close up, Mick administered the coup de grace, and the poor fellow went down headlong and crashed.
This was a remarkable exhibition, a marvellous show. I felt sorry for the poor Pfalz pilot, for he put up a wonderful show of defensive fighting. Had he only kept spinning right down to the ground, I think he would have got away with it.
The Jastas needed a new single-seater and they needed it urgently. As with the birth of the SE 5A, the key element in the equation was the engine. The Mercedes 160 h.p. with honey-comb radiator (which allowed a narrower frontal area and reduced drag) would, it was confidently expected, give this third generation of fighter planes climbing and fighting powers at high altitude significantly better than Allied equipment. Accordingly, in October of 1917, draft specifications were sent to the rival airframe manufacturers with instructions to tender for a new design to be built round the Mercedes 160 h.p. There was little time for the designers to develop their ideas. The Flugzeug Wettewerg (Evaluation Trials) had been fixed for the last ten days of January 1918 and the competing aircraft were to present themselves at the Adlershof airfield at Berlin where they were to be tried for ‘general flying qualities, manœuvrability, diving ability, pilot’s view, combat qualities’ and other factors. A number of the leading aces were withdrawn from the Jagdstaffeln to take part in mock combats be
tween the rival products. The autocratic Manfred von Richthofen would preside.
In spite of the biting winds and sub-zero temperatures, there was a considerable aura of chic about the affair. Fashionable ladies stood about dutifully on the tarmac, hands deep in their fur muffs, or held court on the back seats of their Mercedes Landaulettes, while directors and executives of the various business houses whose interests were at stake, busily ingratiated themselves with all those, notably the pilots, whose influence was critical. Exquisite food sent by Anthony Fokker in a special train from Holland (the blockade was biting deeply in Germany at this time and basic foods were strictly rationed), quantities of champagne looted from Rheims and, of course, the company of all those ladies from the Opera House, were pressed on the pilots. But while they may have enjoyed these things, their decision seems to have been reached on strictly realistic grounds.
Of course we took favours from them all. It was no more than our due; what we had to give in return we had already paid and would pay again. All this luxury and softness reminded us that soon we would return to the bitter reality of blood and iron where so many of our comrades had already paid the price in full. What we had to decide was a matter of life and death – our own and those of our brothers who had remained behind fighting.
Designs had been submitted by AEG, Albatros, Aviatik, Fokker, Konder, Pfalz, Roland, Rumpler, Schütle-Lanz and Siemens Schuckert, but the aeroplane which stood out from all others was the new Fokker design, the D VII. A handsome single-seater with a lean flanked, ‘razor-edge’ fuselage, square wings and a very clean, although somewhat sinister silhouette, emphasized by its slender bracing which was almost invisible from some angles against the light. Maximum speed was 118 m.p.h.; climb to 10,000 feet was 9 minutes compared with the SE 5A’s 10 minutes 20 seconds and the Camel’s 8 minutes 10 seconds. The D VII’s most vital asset, however, was its ability to hang on its propeller at altitude, where the Allied machines would have stalled or have had to lose height.