DUD. Dead, or bad.
JAGSTAFFEL. German term for fighting squadron.
JOYSTICK. The airplane's steering and control lever.
OFFICE. The cockpit of an airplane, where the pilot sits.
PANNE. A forced landing caused by engine failure.
PIQUE. TO dive vertically downward, with engine either open or shut.
RENVERSEMENT. A sudden reversal of direction of flight. This is not to be confused with “bank,” as the latter is a slow movement. A renversement is usually executed by suddenly zooming up, then throwing the airplane over onto one wing and kicking the tail around to the rear.
SAUCE. Petrol or gasoline.
VIRAGE. A bank or circle in the air.
VOLUNTARY PATROL. A voluntary flight by a pilot over the lines.
VRILLE. A tail spin. The airplane falls earthward, with tail above always swinging around the nose of the machine, which acts as a pivot. The motion is similar to the rotation of a match in a whirlpool.
WIND UP. Scared, having the wind go up one's spine, causing the hair to stand on end with fear.
ZOOM. TO pitch the airplane suddenly upward at great speed. Usually accomplished after a dive has given the airplane additional momentum.
CHAPTER I
Introducing “Archie”
My most memorable morning came on the sixth day of March, 1918. I had joined the 94th Aero Squadron, the Hat-in-the-Ring organization at Villeneuve, two days before. We were located some twenty miles behind the lines and were comfortably set up on an old layout that had been used previously by several French squadrons.
After days of schooling and nights of anticipation, I woke up on this day to find the first of my dreams come true. Major Raoul Lufbery, at the time our most famous American flier, and senior officer of our group, announced that he would lead a flight that would take off after breakfast for a look over the German lines. In fact, this patrol was to intrude over enemy territory in the Champagne sector.
“Who is to go?” was the question in every pilot's mind. We all had vague ideas of the possible surprises in store for us, but everyone was keen to be selected.
Major Lufbery looked us over in silence. He was a very quiet man, but very droll on occasions. He had seen almost two years of service with the Lafayette Escadrille and had shot down seventeen enemy airplanes before any squadron of the American Air Service had reached the front.
“Rick,” said the major casually, “you and Campbell be ready to leave at 8:15. Right?”
I tried to act nonchalant when I replied, “Yes, sir.”
Captain Douglas Campbell put on a much better face with his acceptance, and the other boys crowded around and tendered us much well-meaning advice, but that which I remember most clearly was: “Look out for Archie!”
“Archie” was the name British pilots had given to enemy antiaircraft fire. Early in the war, a London music hall ditty closed with the phrase: “Archibald! Certainly not!” This was used facetiously by these pilots whenever an enemy shot came too close for comfort, but as was to be expected, eventually was clipped to a jovial rebuff … “Archie!” American pilots took up the term along with many others of the period.
We were flying the French-built Nieuport single-seater scout, powered with a 110-hp Le Rhone rotary engine, which was designed to provide a top speed of about 107 mph. We had good mechanics and our machines were kept in top condition. Nevertheless, I wanted to make doubly sure that everything was first-rate and available, for Major Lufbery had a reputation for punctuality.
At 8:00 A.M. I bearded my mechanic in the hangar: “Henry,” I demanded, “how is my Number 1?”
“Best machine on the floor, sir,” the mechanic replied. “There's not a scratch on her.”
“There will be when you see her again,” I predicted. “Run her out on the line and warm her up, eh?”
I peered out of the hangar watching for the major. Campbell was in his flying gear, ready and anxious; but I didn't want to appear overeager. I lit a cigarette, puffed contentedly but kept a close watch on the major's door. A few of the boys sauntered up and made some standard jokes about what they should do with my personal effects, just in case I didn't come back.
A little later Lufbery turned up and we were ready for him. It took me only a few minutes to step into my fur lined flying suit, slip on my helmet and adjust the goggles. With that both Campbell and I climbed into our Nieuports. The major gave a few instructions to Doug and then came over to me. I listened politely and was particularly impressed by his insistence that I stick close to him and keep in formation. He did not have to repeat that order.
Lufbery ran up his engine for a moment and then took off. Campbell followed and then I opened my throttle. I remember casting one last, longing glance at the familiar flying field just as my tail came up and the wheels began to skim the sparse turf. I pulled her up into the wind and headed after Campbell.
The majestic ruins of Rheims was soon racing under my right wing, but I was quickly to realize that my machine was not as fast as either Lufbery's or Campbell's. I soon began to trail behind our formation and by the time the enemy lines came into view it seemed that Lufbery was at least a mile ahead of me. He was my only salvation, but just as I felt that he had forgotten all about me he suddenly made a tight, banked turn and took up a position a few hundred feet ahead of me. It was as though he had said: “Don't worry, boy, I have an eye on you.”
This occurred again and again, and it was with some difficulty that I tried to perform the same maneuvers that my leader executed with such ease.
We had been flying along at about fifteen thousand feet for some thirty minutes, somewhere between Rheims and the Argonne Forest. The trenches in this sector were quite old and had been dug some three years before. To my inexperienced eyes there appeared to be nothing below but these old battered ditches, earthworks, and billions of shell holes defacing the surface of the earth for five or six miles in all directions. There was not a tree, a fence or any sign of familiar occupation; nothing but the chaos of ruin and desolation. The whole scene was appalling.
Perhaps this grim spectacle got the best of me for a moment. I have no idea what Campbell was thinking and I suppose Major Lufbery was hardened to such scenes and gave little thought to it. But just when I had gained some spirit of resolution and was able to keep my place in our formation, I began to experience the first pangs of airsickness. A stiff wind had been blowing and my Baby Nieuport pitched and rolled violently, and attempting to follow Lufbery up here at fifteen thousand feet left me feeling worse by the minute.
I didn't want to admit, even to myself, that I could get sick in the air. Airsickness was what might be expected of a frightened rookie on his first trip over the lines. I grew colder and colder with the thought of it but I clenched my teeth and prayed that I might fight it off. I determined to look straight ahead and to concentrate completely on the task of sticking it out, no matter how badly I felt.
I had hardly gained control of myself when I was startled by an explosion which seemed to crash out only a few feet behind me. There was no time to look around, for with the initial concussion my plane began to roll and toss much worse than before. The very terror within me drove away all thoughts of airsickness and in the next few minutes several more roars buffeted my plane and the repeated thuds of continued explosions hammered my ears. But no matter what happened I had to look around and see what effect, if any, all this was having on my tail surfaces.
To my great relief all I could see were four or five black balls of smoke some distance below and well behind my tail.
Oh, I knew what they were. These were Archie shells. Eighteen-pounders bursting with shrapnel which were being fired by German antiaircraft guns; and the battery which was firing them was said to be the most accurate Allied aviators had met in this sector.
Little by little my alarm passed away. I began to watch the course of the black puffs behind me. I grew accustomed to the momentary disturbance of the air after
each explosion and almost mechanically I met the lift of the machine with the gentle pressure of my joystick, which righted my Nieuport and smoothed its course. And a rush of happiness came over me with the assurance that I was neither going to be sick nor was I any longer in any terror of the bursting shells.
A feeling of elation possessed me as I realized that my long dreamed and long dreaded novitiate was over. At last I knew clear down deep in my own heart that I was all right. I could fly! I could go over enemy lines like the other boys who had seemed so wonderful to me! I forgot entirely my recent fear and terror. Only a deep feeling of satisfaction and gratitude remained that warmed me and delighted me, for not until that moment had I dared to hope that I possessed all the requisite characteristics for a successful war pilot. Though I had feared no enemy, yet I had feared that I myself might be lacking.
This feeling of self-confidence that this first hour over the Suippe battery brought to me is perhaps the most precious memory of my life. For with the sudden banishment of that first mortal fear that had so possessed me came a belief in my own powers that knew no bounds. I loved flying. I had been familiar with engines all my life. Sports of every sort had always appealed to me. The excitement of automobile racing did not compare with what I knew must come with airplane fighting in France. The pleasure of shooting down another man was no more attractive to me than the chance of being shot down myself. The whole business of war was ugly to me. But the thought of pitting my experience and confidence against that of German aviators and beating them at their own boasted prowess in air combats had fascinated me. I did not forget my inexperience in shooting. But I knew that could be learned easily enough. What I hungered to ascertain was my ability to withstand the cruelties and horrors of war. If that could be conquered, I knew I could hold my own with any man who ever piloted an airplane.
This confidence in myself must have aided me considerably in my learning to fly. After twelve flights in a machine in France, I went aloft for a flight alone. After that first solo flight, I tried several different types of machines with never any feeling of insecurity.
I was floating along through enemy skies in ecstatic contemplation of these thoughts when I suddenly discovered that Major Luf-bery was leading us homeward. I glanced at the clock on my dashboard. It was nearly ten o'clock. We had been out almost two hours and our fuel supply must be running low.
Gradually we descended as we approached the vicinity of our aerodrome. This lovely section of France, as yet undevastated by war, spread below the wings of our little Nieuports in peaceful contrast to the ugliness that lay behind us. Some snow still filled the hollows as far as the eye could reach, for a severe storm had raged over this section of the country but a few days before.
We circled once about the field and, shutting off our engines, slid gently down into the mud which quickly brought the machines to a full pause. Quickening the speed of the propellers we taxied one by one toward the door of the hangar before which every pilot and mechanic stood awaiting us with open-armed expectancy. They were eager to hear the details of our first flight into enemy territory and to see how two beginners, like themselves, had stood the experience.
Both Campbell and I wore satisfactory countenances of bored indifference. We had had a little flip around over the Hun batteries and it had been most droll seeing the gunners wasting their ammunition. We must have cost the Kaiser a year's income by our little jaunt into his lines. As for enemy airplanes, none of them dared to venture up against us. Not a plane was in our vicinity.
At this point Major Lufbery broke into the conversation and asked us what we had seen. I didn't like the sound of his customary little chuckle on this occasion. But we both repeated as easily as we could that we hadn't seen any other airplanes in the sky.
“Just what I expected. They are all the same!” was the major's only comment.
We indignantly asked him what he meant by addressing two expert war pilots in such tones.
“Well,” said Lufbery, “one formation of five Spads crossed under us before we passed the lines and another flight of five Spads went by about fifteen minutes later and you didn't see them, although neither one of them was more than five hundred yards away. It was just as well they were not Boches!
“Then there were four German Albatros two miles ahead of us when we turned back and there was another enemy two-seater nearer us than that, at about five thousand feet above the lines. You must learn to look about a bit when you get in enemy lines.”
Campbell and I stood aghast, looking at each other. Then I saw he was thinking the same thoughts as I. The major was ragging us from a sense of duty, to take some of the conceit out of us. But it was only after weeks of experience over the front that we realized how true his statements were. No matter how good a flier the scout may be and no matter how perfect his eyesight, he must learn to see before he can distinguish objects either on the ground or in air. What is called “vision of the air” can come only from experience and no pilot ever has it upon his arrival at the front.
Then sauntering over to my machine the major bucked me up very considerably by blandly inquiring, “How much of that shrapnel did you get, Rick?” I couldn't help laughing at his effort to put me in a heroic picture frame for the benefit of the boys who were listening. Imagine my horror when he began interestedly poking his finger in one shrapnel hole in the tail; another fragment had gone through the outer edge of the wing and a third had passed directly through both wings not a foot from my body!
The boys told me afterward that I stayed pale for a good thirty minutes and I believe them, for a week passed before the major suggested to me that I again accompany him into the German lines.
CHAPTER II
The Aerodrome
I often wondered whether the mothers and friends of our pilots formed a true conception back home of the surroundings and daily doings of their loved ones in France. Even the term “aerodrome,” where it is known airplanes are landed and kept and cared for and where the pilots live and start from in their trips over the lines and where they are anxiously awaited at the end of their patrol by their comrades—even “aerodrome” must convey a more or less uncertain picture to those who have never actually seen one.
Picture in your minds a smooth field covered with sod and occupying a situation near a town and good highway. It is on comparatively level ground and is square in shape and each of the four sides is about half a mile in length.
Such a field accommodates very nicely four squadrons of fighting machines, which means 80 or 90 airplanes and as many pilots. The road skirts one side of the square. Close to the road in each corner of the square are placed two large sheds, or hangars, to house the airplanes. Each hangar will hold comfortably ten or twelve machines of the small type. There they spend the night and each machine is carefully inspected by the mechanics who “belong to it.” Each pilot has three mechanics who are responsible for his airplane, and it is seldom that any defect can escape their jealous attention.
Around the edges of the field, then, these eight or ten large hangars stand facing inward, with wide open doors through which the airplane can pass out to the line. A short distance away the mess and sleeping quarters for the officers of each squadron are situated. As there are but twenty pilots to each scout squadron, the officers of two squadrons frequently mess together. The enlisted men, including the mechanics, truck drivers, workmen and servants, occupy quarters of their own at a little distance behind the hangars. As each squadron requires almost two hundred enlisted men to take proper care of its many details it is seen that the entire personnel of the average aerodrome group numbers quite one thousand men when the Headquarters, Searchlight Company, Telephone Squad, Lighting Plant, Red Cross and YMCA personnel are added to it. The antiaircraft gunners who have charge of the defense of the aerodrome against enemy raids are not attached to the Air Service and are not properly part of the aerodrome membership.
Such then is the rough arrangement of the pilots' aerodrome. From t
he sky an aerodrome can be seen many miles away by an experienced observer and although every effort is made to camouflage hangars, huts, and airplanes, no flying fields can long be in use by either side before they are discovered by the enemy.
We were but three weeks in the Villeneuve aerodrome and during that time the weather was so severe that comparatively little flying was undertaken by the first of our American pilots, who formed this unit. March 1918, had snowstorms, heavy rains, and high winds. Our airplanes were not of the best and they had not yet been fully equipped.
An amusing episode occurred in this connection, which seems funnier now than it did at that time. The French authorities very kindly made arrangements to help train the new pilots of our squadron in combat fighting over the lines. Accordingly every day or two an experienced French airman would drop down upon our field and take away with him two of our inexperienced freshmen for a trip into Germany, just as Major Lufbery had taken Campbell and myself. Naturally all of our pilots were anxious to go.
After two weeks' patrolling over enemy territory in this manner, you can imagine the consternation of these French flight leaders when they discovered that the American machines which had accompanied them carried no weapons! Our machine guns had not yet arrived.
Fortunately the Boches didn't know it and no encounters had taken place. But the idea of this dummy fleet carrying on such a gigantic bluff over enemy lines was as comic to us as was the story of the wooden ships of the British Navy which had deterred the German fleet from leaving harbor. The Frenchmen however couldn't understand this sense of humor.
It was at this period that we lost one of my dearest friends and a commander who was respected and loved by all the pilots. Captain James Miller had left family and home and a prosperous business in New York to serve his country over the battlefields of France. He was a lighthearted, lovable companion, but I had long ago discovered the stern, determined qualities of his character. He had often told me his greatest desire was to go into the skies and win a combat against an enemy aviator. The long delays in Paris irritated him, and his work in organizing the Aviation School at Is-soudun for the training of American pilots did not satisfy him. He yearned for an opportunity to get over the lines in a fighting plane.
Fighting the Flying Circus Page 2