Blood and Thunder

by Alexandra J Churchill

  Number 40 Squadron had resumed its more familiar role of offensive patrols as German preparations on the ground gathered force. On 6 April Ian took off to patrol the area directly east of Arras on what turned out to be a highly fruitful outing. Almost immediately he saw four German machines buzzing west along the line of the Scarpe and he dived on them to attack. They scattered out of his way, all except what he took for an Albatros, which remained in his sights. Ian charged at it, spitting off rounds from his machine gun at close range.

  The enemy airman zoomed up and Ian followed, firing another short burst from the Vickers and hitting his prey in the engine. The Albatros glided in front of him and for a panicked few seconds it seemed that they might collide. Ian veered off sharply and managed to get out of the way. The German machine pulled away and drifted off, steam pouring out of it and its propeller motionless.

  Looking about for something else to do Ian trundled off at a calmer speed. He had lost significant altitude during the fight and he climbed steadily back up to 10,000ft as he flew north-east towards Douai. Some fifteen minutes later he spotted another enemy aircraft emerging from some cloud cover. Ian was in the mood for another scrap and he pulled up to get over the top of it and hide himself in the sunlight.

  He burst down out of the glare and took it on. He got to within 100 yards of it and came from behind, blasting away with his gun. Either his fire was accurate and wounded his opponent or he did not seem to share Ian’s enthusiasm. The enemy airman didn’t return fire, he simply turned east for home and began diving away. Ian stalked him closely, emptying as much ammunition as he could into it for good measure. He followed it down to 8,000ft then watched as it continued losing height and finally crashed into some houses near Brebieres2.

  Three days later the German offensive on the Lys began and the ground was once again blanketed in thick fog. Cloud remained low all day and by the time the RAF could get into the air Portuguese troops holding the middle of the line had been overrun, leaving the flank of John Ponsonby’s division dangerously exposed. The Germans were already crossing the River Lys. It was a very different scenario to that on the Somme, where no hugely significant objective was at risk until Amiens. The northern part of the Western Front was cramped and every bit of ground was critical.

  Once again information was essential as was any influence that the airmen could have on slowing the German advance. Ian and his fellow pilots plummeted to low heights to strafe the enemy as they surged forward. The relentless work continued the following day. Mist and rain hampered the squadron until lunchtime but as soon as it cleared the skies were alive with activity. A bulge appeared in the middle of the front and the British line was in danger of coming apart as it stretched further and further. By nightfall German troops were in Nieppe, Merville and, heartbreakingly, Messines, so valiantly won the year before. Douglas Haig recognised the gravity of the situation and would issue his famous rallying call to his troops:

  With our backs to the wall and believing in the justice of our cause each of us must fight on to the end. The safety of our homes and the freedom of mankind … depend upon the conduct of each one of us at this critical moment.

  The next day, 12 April, was vital. The British line had to hold long enough for reinforcements, or the tide could turn drastically in favour of the Germans. The outnumbered Allies had already withstood the enemy onslaught for three days. Now the Kaiser’s men had their sights set on Hazebrouck and, beyond that, the Channel. It was unthinkable that either should fall into enemy hands.

  Whilst troops on the ground desperately tried to close the gap at Merville, 40 Squadron was told to concentrate wholly on enemy advances coming up to the village from Estaires and Neuf Berquin. Ian Napier went up before breakfast and was over Estaires itself at a height of about 8,000ft when his patrol engaged a number of enemy aeroplanes. The scrap he was engaged in broke up and he picked on another Albatros lingering nearby. He fired long bursts from both guns, letting off nearly 300 rounds. The German plane turned and arced away south-east. Then, suddenly, it flipped over on its back in mid air and fell away out of control.

  Number 40 Squadron was not done for the day. In the afternoon a special patrol of twelve fighter machines, half of them from Ian’s squadron, went looking for German observation balloons. The RAF really did perform with its back to the wall. It was the busiest day of the war thus far for the British fliers. All day long they took off, fought, hounded the Germans on the ground, landed, refuelled, re-armed and went back up again. The Royal Air Force dropped more than 2,500 bombs on the enemy and fired 115,000 rounds of ammunition whilst the working machines took nearly 3,500 photographs of events up and down the front.

  On 15 April Ballieul fell but, crucially, Hazebrouck remained in British hands. The Salient had to be evacuated back to Pilckem Ridge, which was painful, but it was done in an orderly fashion. Reserves were arriving from other fronts and stalemate was setting in. Rain now began to hamper the efforts of the RAF to get into the air. ‘As far as an unbiased spectator can judge,’ quipped one of the pilots of 40 Squadron, ‘the War still continues, at least, this is the conclusion I have come to from fairly diligent reading of the Daily Mail.’ His sarcasm was in the vein of Henry Dundas. ‘Apparently we are still “winning” … We have lost all the guns and most of the men on the front, but as this was fortunately anticipated by Sir Henry Wilson and Lloyd George, we have little to worry about.’

  Number 40 Squadron continued to work long, now largely unrewarding, hours in ‘beastly’ weather. Ian Napier scored another victory before the month was out but also had a narrow escape of his own. He was flying at high altitude one day when he observed an enemy machine some 12,000ft below. To get to it would require a steep dive. He shot down, engine throttle all the way back for some 6,000ft. ‘Suddenly the machine gave a terrific vibration … I pulled out of the dive by winding back a few notches.’ He plodded carefully and slowly west and on landing found that on three out of his four wings the spars were splintered badly. Ian’s machine had very nearly broken up in mid air.

  Ludendorff had been fully aware of what would happen if his country failed to win the war in the spring of 1918, but fail they had. As exhausted as the faltering British and French troops were, they had reinforced themselves with reserves and more contingents of Americans had begun to arrive. The Germans had taken large areas of ground on the Somme, but the gain was negligible when it hadn’t set them up strategically for victory. They had also suffered crippling casualties and possessed limited resources to replace them.

  As a result of Germany’s spring offensives, yet another group of Old Etonians had been swept aside. In fact the British Army had suffered almost a quarter of a million casualties. On 23 March 1918 the school’s list of casualties tipped over 1,000. The chaotic nature of the retreat across the Somme meant that many families suffered anguish in trying to establish what had happened to their young men. Leonard Tilney received a fitting burial3. Morice St Aubyn’s body was lost when his battalion fell away from Jussy. He was eventually commemorated on the Pozieres Memorial. Dedicated to the missing of 1918 on the Somme it names more than 14,000 casualties who vanished without a trace as the German Army surged forward. Also named is Paul Hobhouse, but his case was far from clear. In the aftermath of the battle his mother was told by another officer that he was safe, a captive in German hands. Relief must have washed over her but it was in vain. Weeks later it transpired that this piece of information had come to the officer second hand and was therefore far less reliable. She obstinately, and quite understandably, refused to believe that this literal lifeline could now be taken away. But all of her hopes were futile. It’s likely that 23-year-old Paul Edward Hobhouse never made it out of the Forward Zone on 21 March.

  Hubert Gough was another sort of casualty altogether. He was far from flawless as a military commander, but to blame him for the fate of the Fifth Army during the German offensive would be wrong. A substantial amount of culpability could be laid at the feet of Llo
yd George and the politicians who had been intent on interfering with military affairs. The enemy may have overrun his own force but Gough was adamant that he knew why the Germans had ultimately failed. During the course of the Fifth Army’s retirement in March he had learned of a South African contingent massacred. Gough later wrote, defending his conduct and that of his men in March 1918:

  Thinking about all the far-flung elements … fighting alongside Brits the words of the Eton boating song come back to me: ‘And nothing on earth shall ever sever the chain that is round us now.’ The principal links in that chain seem to me to be a sense of duty and a generous sympathy for each other, wherever we come from. As long as those characteristics mark the people of this Empire, I do not fear its destruction.

  He spoke with hindsight, but the sentiment rang true. For the German Army the future now looked ominous indeed.

  Notes

  1 2nd Lt Gaspard Alured Evelyn Ridout was laid to rest at Jeancourt Communal Cemetery Extension near St Quentin.

  2 Ian Napier’s first victory over the Albatros on 6 April was never officially credited. He was certainly not the type to brag or claim an honour he hadn’t earned, but he did list it on his own record of his air victories, fully believing he had forced it to ground.

  3 Major Leonard Arthur Tilney is buried at Cabaret-Rouge British Cemetery, Souchez.

  21

  ‘Every Shot Is Telling’

  When RMS Lusitania went into service in 1907 she was regarded as the fastest, most beautiful ship afloat. Nearly 800ft long and built like a luxurious floating hotel, she was the last word in transatlantic liners. Titanic and her sister Olympic outsized her and ‘Lusy’, as she was affectionately known, saw her own sister ship Mauretania go faster, but she was still a favourite on the transatlantic run. Indeed, of the four she was, in spring 1915, the only one still plying this lucrative trade. Although Lusitania had been prepared for life as an armed merchant cruiser, when hostilities commenced she was deemed too greedy in terms of coal and so was left to continue her normal work, albeit it under Admiralty supervision.

  One of the menaces this ocean liner would have to contend with as she continued to ferry passengers at high speed back and forth across the Atlantic was the submarine. Submarines were not a new concept, nor were they received well in traditional naval circles. Nelson referred to underwater craft as ‘bulgarious … sneak dodges down below.’ The idea of attacking a ship from beneath the waves was still viewed by many seamen as a type of piracy.

  On 18 February 1915 Germany stepped up its underwater activity with a campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare in response to a British blockade of her ports. Since the reign of Henry VIII ships were supposed to stop and search an enemy, then give the passengers and crew time to depart the scene safely before sinking them. this concept did not marry with that of the submarine. Now all gloves were off. The Germans would attack and sink any British ship they could. Almost all the waters surrounding the British Isles were declared a war zone by the enemy.

  British ships began resorting to tricky tactics to avoid being attacked by German U-boats. These included running up neutral flags to mask their identity. Lusitania herself had been adorned with an American flag at the beginning of the year as she made an eastbound crossing, arguing somewhat feebly that it was to signify that she had neutrals on board. Despite the threat though, the Royal Navy remained largely apathetic. As First Lord of the Admiralty, Churchill didn’t think the threat significant and in the first two weeks of the German campaign only seven ships were sunk out of nearly 3,000 arrivals and departures from Britain. Throughout April only seventeen merchant ships had been attacked. Nearly half of them had subsequently got away.

  Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, at Eton just before Henry Rawlinson, was the British Ambassador to the United States. On 29 April a proof of a newspaper advertisement with an anonymous note landed on his desk. The advert appeared to be a warning and it was apparently to run in several newspapers on 1 May. It stipulated that neutrals sailed on British ships at their own risk. On this very day Lusitania was due to depart New York on the latest of her homeward crossings bound for Liverpool and the warning was construed by some as a direct threat against her.

  Spring-Rice had originally dismissed the note as a hoax but when it actually appeared in print he cabled London with details. A few people due to sail transferred off the ship and some cancelled their crossing altogether, but it was reasonable to believe that the submarine menace would not affect the great ship. Lusitania could outrun any U-boat easily, was faster than most warships and there was an option to provide her with a naval escort once she reached the designated war zone. Thus, as if nothing had been learned from the tragedy of the Titanic disaster, she was still considered ‘as unsinkable as a ship can be’.

  One passenger who seemed to be unperturbed by the threat of the U-boat menace was Bernard Audley Mervyn Drake. He was 23 years old and had arrived at Eton in 1904, yet another of Mr Brinton’s boys. ‘Audley’ had no time for cricket, unlike John Manners whose room was close by, although he was an enthusiastic footballer. Dry and witty, he took a lively part in the House Debating Society. Once called upon to discuss the new concept of daylight saving time that had been put before Parliament, Audley dismissed it in a tongue-in-cheek manner. It would never catch on, he claimed. ‘Many people enjoyed their after dinner bridge and would not miss the evening for worlds.’ Not to mention what would happen to the train timetable. ‘All clearminded men in Parliament,’ he reminded the room, ‘had opposed the Bill as absolutely futile.’

  As soon as he could, Audley took up science as his speciaility at Eton and after Cambridge he had travelled to the United States. His father was a highly talented electrical engineer and Audley was to follow him into the family business. He had settled temporarily in Detroit in 1913 to acquire a working knowledge of the electro-chemical industry, possibly in conjunction with some military work for the government. He had been having a very merry time and loved the bubbling ‘energy and kindness’ of the Americans that he had met.

  The time had come though to return home and contribute to the war effort. Originally booked into a spacious cabin on A Deck, Audley switched with his travelling companion, Frederick Lewin, a motor engineer and director of Friswell’s who dealt in Peugeots and Renaults and had been visiting New York. Home for Audley for the duration of the crossing was now to be a small but ample first-class cabin on the inside of the ship. D-41 was located just behind the second funnel several decks further down, by the main staircase and passenger lifts servicing the first-class accommodation.

  In all, 1,260 passengers, including three stowaways, were aboard Lusitania as she sailed into the Hudson River at lunchtime on 1 May. They included munitions and equipment manufacturers, shipping men, convalescent soldiers and men hoping to enlist. The war had slowed trade. Of 540 first-class berths only 290 had been filled and down in third class there were only 367 out of a possible 1,200. There was, though, a noticeably large contingent of children on board. As well as thirty-nine babies there were a further thirty-nine young girls and fifty-one little boys.

  There was plenty to keep Audley occupied in first class, including the opulent gold-and-white lounge with its stained-glass ceiling. Right outside his cabin was the outstanding feature of the ship, the double-tier first-class dining room with its elaborate marble columns. The Verandah Café was open all along one side and filled with greenery, hanging baskets and wicker chairs to resemble a pavement café ashore. The ship’s orchestra played music before the furniture was unbolted for dancing and for those who wished to remain active out on deck there were games of shuffleboard or medicine ball throughout the day.

  Always present though was a worrying undertone of what they might be sailing towards. On 6 May a warning message began to be tapped out at intervals, alerting ships to the fact that a U-boat had been making a nusiance of itself off the southern coast of Ireland. Just before 8 p.m. this warning was received by the wireless operators on boa
rd Lusitania. A second coded alert then followed detailing submarine activity about Fastnet which was some eighteen hours away.

  Captain William Turner had received much advice from the Admiralty on how to keep his ship safe, including avoiding headlands and passing harbours at full speed so as not to dawdle near submarines. At sunset that evening he gave orders for the crew to extinguish all outboard lights, to cover the skylights, draw the curtains in public rooms and darken the portholes.

  That night at a concert Turner, who was not a people person and had deigned to join the event despite having once described passengers as ‘a lot of bloody monkeys’, assured his charges of their safety. Nevertheless some of them slept in the public areas and some sat up in their cabins fully dressed. A number of passengers had formed a little committee to teach their fellow travellers how to put on lifebelts and one group of young men had got together and decided that in the event of an emergency it just wouldn’t do to push women and children out of the way to get to their positions in the lifeboat. They would meet up towards the stern and decide amongst themselves what to do next.

  At dawn on 7 May a thick fog came down. Concerned about running into shallow water as Lusitania sailed into the war zone, Turner was compelled to slow down to 15 knots, the top speed of the very submarine lurking in the water according to the warnings. At 10 a.m. the fog began to lift and the ship’s speed picked back up as the spring day grew sunny and clear. Although they were now travelling at 18 knots, the burst of speed the passengers were expecting to carry them into port did not materialise. Some hoped that they might be waiting for an escort.