The First Great Air War

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  One of the marvels of all that aircrews accomplished in that war was that they did so much in such adverse physical conditions. It was intensely cold and now that patrols at heights of 14,000 feet and higher were becoming standard the low temperature was painful and incapacitating. Pilots and observers came dangerously close to suffering hypothermia. Frostbite was a common affliction. More dangerous and a greater physical handicap was lack of oxygen. In the 1939-45 war, when all aircraft were fitted with oxygen “bottles”, it was compulsory in the RAF to switch on at 10,000 feet. Tolerance of oxygen deprivation varies and some men switched on sooner. Oxygen starvation causes hallucinations — clouds, for instance, are mistaken for other aeroplanes, mountain ranges, and stranger things — headache, nausea, lack of strength and energy. On top of these handicaps was the nauseating effect of castor oil as an engine lubricant. The fumes caused vomiting and diarrhoea. A tractor rotary engine sent oil spraying back over pilot and observer, reducing vision through windscreen — not all machines had them — and goggles, and blackening faces. Men had to fly with mouth and chin wrapped in a thick scarf. It was Hawker who designed, and had made, the first pair of fleece-lined thigh boots that became known as “fug-boots”. These were a great comfort, but soft-soled and cumbersome and impractical for walking more than a few yards to and from one’s aircraft. Aircrew who made forced landings and either had to evade capture or walk miles to a friendly unit cursed them.

  Another grievous handicap in air fighting was the continued unreliability of machineguns. All were prone to jam from many causes. Fusee springs, pawls, buffers, triggers, defects in drums, imperfect rounds, all caused the frustrations of interrupted combat and lost victories.

  Within a week, two of 24’s pilots were killed when their aircraft spun in. The DH2 already had a reputation for involuntary and irrecoverable spinning. It was being called “the spinning incinerator”, but there was nothing new about this. The Shorthorn was “the flying incinerator” and various other types were described as incinerators or coffins, because they stalled or spun easily and usually caught fire when they crashed. They were facile epithets, often intended to excuse pilots’ errors. These were not always their fault, but the result of poor and hasty training that sent them into the air before they were fully competent.

  The two fatal crashes were potential morale destroyers. Like everyone else, Hawker had carefully avoided a spin. He now took a DH2 up to 8000 feet and spun it several times: to left and right, with and without engine. Nobody was watching. He landed, went into the mess and announced what he had done. Everyone wanted to know how he had done it. When he had explained how a DH2 could be made to recover from a spin, all his pilots hurried into the air to practise it.

  In preparation for their first fight Hawker made his pilots practise gunnery day after day, diving at a full-scale outline of a Fokker on the ground. He designed the ring sight that was adopted throughout the Service. Some of his pilots mounted twin Lewis guns and he encouraged that, not only because it would double their fire power but also because if one jammed they would have a spare. He showed the twin mounting to his Brigade Commander, who promptly forbade it. Had he had to fight in the air himself, the brigadier general would perhaps have approved of it. Hawker experimented with a double ammunition drum, one welded on top of another in the Armament Section, which led to the production of the ninety-four-round drum that was introduced soon after.

  The ineptitude of those who designed gun mountings and the senior officers who would condone no modification made by the men who actually had to fight with these weapons was staggering. The DH2’s Lewis was mounted on a universal joint on the left-hand side of the aeroplane’s nose. The majority of pilots, being right-handed, found this awkward. Many had their guns moved to the right. It was some time before anyone did the obvious and had it mounted centrally. Another irritant was that the gun had to be held steady when being fired. This meant that, wherever it was mounted, a hand had to be taken off the joystick or throttle. In addition, the freely moving mount allowed the gun to dance and wander all over the place, even when the handgrip on the butt was firmly held. Hawker had his squadron’s guns fixed rigidly; but not for long: the brigadier wouldn’t allow that either. Hawker then compromised by having the muzzle anchored by a strong spring, which could not be described as a fixed mounting but did reduce most of the straying off aim.

  On 24th April 1916 came the chance at last to evaluate the DH2 against the Fokker, when four of 24 Squadron escorted five BE2Cs of No. 15 on reconnaissance. Twelve Fokkers attacked, some circling to prevent the BE2cs from retreating, the others waiting to make their familiar dive and zoom. When it was obvious that the reconnaissance machines had no intention of turning back, and the whole British formation was deep in enemy territory, the circling Fokkers joined their companions. Then the whole lot swarmed down in attack. The DH2s turned with an agility that surprised the Germans and made straight for them. The Germans, disconcerted by this bold tactic, pulled out of their dives and broke to right and left. In a few seconds the DH2s were into them, turning with them or inside them, firing every time they had an enemy in their sights. Two Fokkers pulled out, damaged, and a moment later a third followed. The remainder drew off and circled, trying to draw the DH2s away so that they could attack the BE2Cs. The escort would not be drawn. Their job was to stick close to their flock.

  The Fokkers did not attack again. The nine British aeroplanes returned home unharmed. The DH2 had broken the Fokkers’ grip on the British Sector of the Western Front.

  CHAPTER 10 - 1916. A Hard Life

  The air forces of all the combatant nations kept their raw tenuous grip on a life that was tough, edgy and fraught with nearly as much danger from the tools of their trade as from enemy action. A raucous ironical black humour was also common property. The name which airmen bestowed on the control column, “joystick”, with its phallic connotation, typified their robust brand of wit.

  One innovation had already been introduced a few months earlier by the French, earned a frown of disapproval from the British and was looked at askance, but with their usual humbug, envy and imitativeness, by the Germans.

  It is now necessary to take a short step backwards in time to one which, it will be seen, fits quite logically here. The great Adolphe Pegoud, whose astoundingly bold aerobatics have been mentioned, was famous also for two other feats of conspicuous bravery. In 1913 he had made the first parachute jump from an aeroplane: a single-seater in which he had gone up for the purpose, and perforce had to allow to crash after he had quit it. In the same year, he was the first man to fly inverted. He had prepared for this by having an aeroplane turned upside down while he sat in the cockpit, then suspended from its hangar roof. When he had timed how long he could sustain this rush of blood to the head, he knew the safe duration of a first inverted flight.

  He is mentioned here because he was the first pilot to be dubbed an “ace”. It was the French newspapers, whose reporters and readers were avidly interested in all aspects of aviation and wildly excited by the apparently romantic exploits of their military airmen, which coined the term; or title, as it began to be regarded. When, in 1915, Pegoud became the first to shoot down five enemy aeroplanes, the national press, acclaiming his achievement, sought a term of distinction for him and those who would emulate him. Ace was the chosen word.

  Pégoud, sadly, did not survive to enjoy his notoriety for long. On 31st August 1915 an infantry battalion sent an urgent request for an aircraft to drive off an enemy two-seater that was harassing it. Pégoud, when not flying, was permanently standing by for a report of enemy aircraft, so that he could take off in his Nieuport Bébé at once to intercept. This time he knew where the enemy was loitering. When the German pilot and observer spotted him, they began to climb. He caught up and opened fire. The enemy replied. Presently Pégoud had to break off to reload his Lewis gun, then attacked again. The German observer put a Parabellum bullet through his heart. The Nieuport crashed to earth from 10,000 feet. His e
scadrille found his unlikely good luck charm, a child’s cuddly toy in the shape of a penguin, among the wreckage.

  L’Aviation Militaire did not at first officially recognise the status of “ace”, but tacitly had to accept the word’s popular use and its implication. With the passing of time it insinuated itself into official approval. Commandant de Rose saw the value of it in maintaining morale. When he took command at Verdun he officially published pilots’ individual scores. This exaltation was harmless enough, good for the morale of single-seater pilots and for the reputation of the Service. The invidious effect of an elevation of fighter pilots above bomber, reconnaissance and artillery co-operation pilots and observers was apparently not taken into account. This was also the first acknowledgment of public enthralment by the glamorous notion of two knightly figures jousting chivalrously for honour and glory. The myth of chivalry has already been demolished. Nor can there be anything remotely romantic about men being riddled with bullets or incinerated alive. Honour and glory, however, remain valid.

  While the Germans did not admit having adopted the ace system, they acknowledged an equivalent by setting a target of eight kills as the requirement for award of the Blue Max, the Pour le Mérite. This was later increased to sixteen. Most fighter pilots also received a silver Ehrenbecher, a beaker of honour, to commemorate their first kill. It was a brutish, ill-proportioned trophy.

  To the British, conferring this sort of adulation on an individual was anathema and would have embarrassed the recipients. Air fighting, like any other military or naval engagement, was essentially a matter of team work. Commanding Officers did not like having brilliant individualists on their squadrons. As the air war developed and fighters fought in pairs, sections of three, flights of four or six and squadrons of twelve, the vindication of this became increasingly evident. None the less, and the French and Germans would indict the British for allegedly typical hypocrisy, on 6th May 1918, Lieutenant Colonel Joubert de la Ferté, Commanding 14th Wing, decreed that the minimum score for an immediate award of the newly introduced Distinguished Flying Cross, which replaced the Military Cross as a decoration for flying, would be six victories. There is no evidence of any Commander having laid down a set number of bomber or reconnaissance sorties for a member of aircrew to fly in order to qualify for this decoration. The truth remains that it is impossible to assess merit in action by any such arbitrary yardstick: five, six, eight or sixteen kills, they are all equally spurious as a real measure of what a fighter pilot deserves. They also ignore the existence of other pilots and their crews.

  Despite the RFC’s insistence that victory in the air was achieved by team work, individually gifted fighter pilots were more than tolerated throughout the war, as will be seen, and granted many privileges: among them, choice of aeroplane, freedom to take off when, and to roam where, they chose. And, naturally, the British press and public lauded them.

  By this time the popular image of a fighter pilot was well established. La Guerre Aérienne really let itself go on the subject. The aviator, it said, was a man exceptional for his physical and moral qualities, an adventurer out of the ordinary; a sort of champion towards whom popular fervour was directed. This was why everyone who entered the aviation Service aspired to fly a fighter.

  “Fighter pilots are an élite, a glorious élite, universally praised, officially very much appreciated. To become one of them is to receive a mark of distinction, it is the consecration of exceptional qualities.”

  The number of volunteers for fighters greatly exceeded the requirement. A fighter pilot was “entrusted with a supple, highly-strung, prodigiously fast machine. This seduced sportsmen by its lively charms, in particular the intoxicating speed that increased tenfold the sensation of power.”

  La Guerre Aérienne frequently insists on the moral qualities demanded: “What justified the fighter pilots’ liberty was the fact that they put it to good use. For that, intrepidity, courage, love of sport and a taste for risk are necessary.”

  “My dream,” wrote Brindejonc des Moulinais, “is to shoot down a dozen Boches, receive a scar and return to rest from the fatigues of summer at Val, keeping bees.”

  There was praise for the “daring, even temerity” of the RFC: “Every day they accomplish exploits which prove how useful sport is as a training for those who make war. Perhaps one could even reproach them for their sporting spirit, which makes them ignore danger. They hurl themselves at the enemy impetuously, with admirable bravery.”

  The magazine classified French recruits in four categories. First of all the cavalryman, because static warfare had grievously shrunk the uses of the mounted arm and inaction became unbearable. The infantryman: with emphasis on the need to ensure that a candidate was not seeking only to get away from the trenches. Pre-war civilian pilots formed the third group. The fourth consisted of men who had been wounded in action and were unfit to continue in their own arm. Presumably an infantryman who could no longer march or a cavalry- or artilleryman who could no longer ride, but could walk to an aeroplane and sit in it, were whom the writer had in mind.

  In 1914 the majority of volunteers were pre-war pilots. After 1915, “it is a man from the infantry or cavalry, who wants to escape from anonymity or inaction. Other motives are more varied: the interest to be found in a new type of risk, a taste for adventure, the attraction of a popular arm whose first appearance excited the public, sometimes also the hope of better conditions of life when not in action.

  “Thus were born three categories of airmen: the real war pilot; the ‘honest’ pilot; the ‘honorary’ pilot, he whom one finds at the Front, where he flies when he has no choice: his comrades tolerate him and do not bear a grievance about his slackness, because he is a jolly fellow, a musician, an artist or runs the mess excellently.”

  A recruit pilot’s life was no sybaritic sinecure. There were long delays before admission to flying school. Brindejonc des Moulinais, a pre-war civil pilot, complained: “We are sixteen in one room, at my request my mechanic is with me; the surroundings are better than in the foot-sloggers, but even so there are some shocking things … my only resort is to take photographs of conditions in barracks. It is no fun and it is monotonous.”

  René Dorme, later of Les Cigognes, who had transferred from the artillery, was sent to the Military Academy at Saint-Cyr, where, he wrote: “They don’t know what to do with us. There are thirty of us NCOs who have nothing to occupy us. I would like to shout my hatred and my disgust for those who let us stagnate like this.”

  Once a pilot joined a fighting unit his existence was transformed. Pilot Sergeant James McConnell, of the Escadrille Lafayette, found that during training a pupil pilot was subjected to rules and a discipline as strict as in barracks, “but once called to the firing line, he is treated on the same footing as an officer, whatever his rank. His two mechanics are under his orders. There are neither roll calls nor other military restraints, and in place of a straw-filled mattress he has a real bed in his own room.”

  Brindejonc des Moulinais greatly relished the contrast between life as a trainee pilot and as an operational one. Being a Frenchman, his first observation in a letter home is about the food. “Apart from the guns which one clearly hears rumbling, this is the veritable country life as lived in a château and, my word, I should enjoy myself greatly here. Yesterday I ate wild duck. Today it will be partridge for lunch and probably pheasant for dinner. I got up at half past eight this morning and I have just breakfasted on a large bowl of milk, two fried eggs and breast of duck.” In another letter he says: “Thanks to the aviator’s legendary flair for sniffing out the best on campaign, the escadrille almost always establishes itself near a little village of welcoming houses and with shops abundantly provided with a variety of provisions.”

  Again: “In an escadrille, a pilot flies for two or three hours every day. In addition there is gunnery practice, testing machineguns, discussions and conferences. But, however, there often remain hours of leisure to spend in shooting, fishing, footba
ll, etc.” And, about the men in the trenches: “I know that they get used to their life in a filthy hole, but what admiration we should have for them.”

  Girardot, another pilot, wrote to his parents: “I don’t want you to worry about me, for it really is not worthwhile. I am very happy and I spend my life at the Front in the most agreeable way possible. As for the dangers that I run, they are small, I assure you, above all beside those of the poor rank and file, the real ones who are in the trenches.”

  Despite uneasy consciences, the single-seater pilots protested against any measure that tended to withdraw privileges from them and reduce them to the level of those in other combatant arms. Jacques Mortane, editor of La Guerre Aérienne for example, complained on their behalf about a proposal to double the number of victories needed to earn a mention in despatches from five to ten. This measure was intended to avoid arousing jealousy among the ground troops. “Our troops are more tolerant. Thank God!” Mortane wrote. “Nothing is more natural than that they should be given the benefit of praise in despatches. But it should be understood that there is a distinction between those who fight together and airmen who fight alone.”

  *

  The RFC did not live as well as their French counterparts. To begin with, although the officers usually contrived to supplement the rations by local purchase, the food for all ranks was mediocre and monotonous. Occasionally officers lived in a requisitioned château or several small village houses, but usually on camp. When pasture or arable land was commandeered for use as an aerodrome, the farmhouse was probably included. It might be used as an officers’ mess, and the CO’s quarters or squadron Orderly Room. Almost invariably, sleeping accommodation was in bell tents and wooden huts or corrugated iron Nissens. Sometimes all ranks were under canvas, at others the officers slept in huts. There might be any number from two to six sharing a room. As the war progressed, huts for everyone became more usual.