The contribution of the RFC for the remainder of the battle remained at the mercy of the weather. For example, strong winds and heavy rain vastly disrupted artillery co-operation for the five days after 1 August; low cloud, mist and smoke made flying difficult on 16 August when ground troops launched an attack in the Langemarck area. Similarly, rain and low mist reduced the air contribution to an assault along the Menin Road 19–20 September. However, during more favourable spells of weather, reconnaissance, patrol, artillery co-operation and bombing operations were carried out effectively.
On 3 August, Douglas Joy left England to join No 32 Sqn at Droglandts in the Ypres sector, where he would fly single-seat fighters. He had promised his wife, Nesta, that he would write each day and she fretted if he did not keep that promise. One delay was explained in a letter of 16 August: Joy had crashed into a shell hole in No Man’s Land and lay there for a considerable time pinned under his wrecked machine, ‘while shells rattled overhead’, before help arrived. He was unhurt and soon flying again.
Sgt Edwin Bousher was not so fortunate. His operational career began and ended in the struggle to capture Passchendaele Ridge. A letter from Lt B.R.S. Jones of No 57 Sqn to Bousher’s father on 22 August explained that his son had been wounded, but was ‘progressing favourably’. Jones wrote that during a bombing raid with five other aeroplanes, his DH4 became separated from the others after Bousher realised that one of his bombs had not dropped. While trying to release it over the target, he was attacked by several German machines and ‘put up a great fight’. Both petrol tanks were severely damaged and the engine stopped. Nevertheless, Bousher managed to put down on the Allied side of the line, despite having been badly hit below the left knee.
Jones had visited Bousher in a Casualty Clearing Station that morning, where he was ‘full of grit’, although the leg was ‘rather painful’. He would soon be coming home, and Jones wrote that Bousher was ‘one of the pluckiest young pilots in a squadron which holds a splendid record’. Jones was sorry to report that Bousher’s observer had died of his wounds. He concluded: ‘Allow me to congratulate you on being the father of such a grand young soldier, who will soon be with you to tell you the whole story in detail’. In his logbook, Bousher noted that the hang up occurred over an ammunition dump near Ledeghem aerodrome and that six enemy machines had attacked him.
Tryggve Gran very nearly did not survive even to reach the battle area. In August 1917, from their Essex base he and Capt J.I. Mackay took a machine to London to ‘show off to friends … We looped, we rolled, we turned upside down and flew with heads down. The air of the capital made us quite tipsy and we were pretty shattered by the time we got back to Hainault.’ Seeing fellow flyers on the ground, Gran could not resist going into a spin. ‘Down I went like lightning and soon the ground was only 1,000ft below me’, causing him to panic. Whatever Gran did, he failed to get out of the spin. Suddenly, he remembered words of wisdom once uttered to him: ‘In emergency use your engine.’ He pushed the throttle right forward ‘and virtually let the plane look after itself. But the ground was already there and I heard a crash and saw stars and went over to a country of sweet dreams.’ He came to with the sight of people crowding over him and the voice of Mackay: ‘“You lucky devil” – and he was right. The aircraft was smashed to pieces but as for me I escaped with mild concussion.’
Somewhat fortunately, therefore, on 1 September 1917 Tryggve Gran reported to No 70 Sqn flying Sopwith Camels at Estrée Blanche, Liettres. ‘The flyers gave me a hearty reception, but from my reckoning not one which I could call encouraging’. The OC, Maj M.H.B. Nethersole, told him: ‘Your arrival is heaven-sent. We lost five men today.’ Allocated one of the dead men’s tents, he recalled: ‘A strange unpleasant mood got hold of me and I could have wished myself many hundreds of miles from Estrée Blanche’. He was a little cheered by the head of Frank Bickerton, a fellow Antarctic explorer who had been with Sir Douglas Mawson’s Australasian expedition of 1911–14, being stuck through the tent flap. He suggested that next day they might ‘shoot a few penguins together’.
Gran discovered that dawn and evening patrols were standard, the first at 6am before breakfast. One day two ‘raw beginners’ were lost. Never having been in action before, they separately ‘lagged behind’ the fighter formation. Gran mused: ‘The first trip over enemy territory is, as a rule, the most fateful for a flyer’.
On another occasion, morning fog prevented operations until the afternoon when ‘after tea four of us readied ourselves for a sortie behind the German lines’. Flying in formation they crossed the line at 10,000ft near Mount Kemmel. ‘Fire from the ground was astonishingly weak and the whole expedition began to take on the appearance of a joy ride.’ Crossing Courtrai they followed the Lys river southwards towards Menin, when the formation leader Lt C.F. Collett began wagging his wings and climbing so rapidly that Gran had difficulty following him. Almost immediately he heard ‘a bang’ behind him and saw Bickerton tussling with two enemy machines. ‘On the horizon were still more planes and I realised at once that we were “going to have fun”.’
Having failed to shoot down their intended victim and presumably confident in the impending arrival of support, the two enemy aeroplanes ‘sailed alongside our formation’ to the irritation of Bickerton. He made a sharp climbing turn to the right and got on the tail of one of them from which ‘a huge flame’ appeared. ‘Like a wizened leaf he sank down and then suddenly his nose dropped and he plunged down and disappeared like a burning torch’. Bickerton then attacked the second machine, which quickly made off ‘in the direction of his friends, who were steadily getting nearer’.
Regrouping, the four Camels flew towards Ypres but were caught by the seven pursuing Germans short of it. With the sun ‘in our favour’, Gran was sure that if the enemy remained behind them all would be well. ‘But fate would have it that a fight there would be’. Collett’s Camel developed engine trouble, which slowed the formation and allowed the Germans to climb towards them. Something had to be done, and Collett signalled the other three to attack by wagging his wings once more. ‘Like a wild animal leaping for his prey we cut into the front of the German line’, which so surprised the enemy that they spilt up and turned away. Suddenly, Gran found one of the Germans in front at close range, ‘gave him something to remember’ and chased him as he dived away ‘with me at his heels’. ‘To my satisfaction’, Gran recalled, he made an error which cost many airmen their lives: ‘He steered straight down – and my task became simple. His machine lay before me like an anchored target and through my sights I followed my bullets’ path into him. Poor chap, a tyro he must have been, but then so was I, his executioner.’
Gran had now descended to 2,000ft and lost the others. Setting course for base, he was relieved to catch up with his companions. Landing, they discovered that Collett was not back, and an anxious thirty minutes went by before he appeared with ‘his engine stuttering and stammering’. Once he was down, it emerged that the Germans had pursued his crippled Camel and all the pilot could do was hug the terrain, hop over trees and houses ‘while machine-gun fire from ground and air thundered in his ears’. Eventually the heavier German machines, unsuited to Collett’s aerobatics, gave up the chase. Maj Nethersole was so delighted at their exploits that he made his car available for the four of them. So as the sun went down, they ‘drove at high speed through one of those typical North French towns, between high poplars, along canals and through innumerable dirty and dilapidated villages’ until they found a suitable hostelry at which to celebrate.
Manfred von Richthofen indirectly acknowledged the effectiveness of the RFC on 10 August, when he complained that it was pointless taking off once Allied formations had crossed the line and the British were then flying at 14,000–15,000ft. ‘Our machines do not have the climbing capacity to reach the enemy in time’. But he was cheered by arrival of the new single-seat Fokker Dr. I (dreidecker, triplane), with a maximum speed of 115mph (185kph), ceiling of 20,000ft and armed with two S
pandau machine guns, one of which would become his distinctive aerial weapon. These machines could ‘climb like apes and are as manoeuvrable as the devil’, he wrote. Within two months, however, serious concerns were raised about their tendency to structural failure. On one occasion, Richthofen’s triplane disintegrated as he landed.
On 11 August came another fillip for RFC morale and indirectly confirmation of Richthofen’s unease about the current state of his own air force, when The London Gazette described an action near Cambrai on 2 June, which earned Canadian Capt William Avery ‘Billy’ Bishop a VC. Flying independently and finding no aeroplanes at the target airfield, he flew south-east to another, where seven machines with their engines running were about to take off. Bishop immediately attacked from 50ft. As one aeroplane became airborne, he opened fire and it crashed, then a second similarly fired on hit a tree. Two more did successfully get aloft, but at 1,000ft Bishop emptied a drum of ammunition into one which crashed close to the aerodrome. He fired the rest of his ammunition into the fourth machine, then turned for home evading four more enemy aeroplanes on the way. The official account of the exploit ended laconically: ‘His machine was very badly shot up by machine-gun fire from the ground’. Promoted major on 28 August, Bishop allegedly declared: ‘Give me the aeroplane I want and I’ll go over Berlin night – or day – and come back too, with my luck.’
Three days after the announcement of Bishop’s VC, on 14 August James McCudden was cheered to learn of a posting to No 56 Sqn in France as a flight commander. There, he proved keen on discipline and high standards and led by example in his SE5a single-seat biplane. He was acutely conscious, though, that he lacked the experience and operational successes of Squadron pilots like Arthur Rhys-Davids, an old Etonian, and Richard Mayberry, a former cavalryman. McCudden knew Tryggve Gran from his Joyce Green days and complained to him of ‘a rotten spell of gun trouble’. On one occasion he had been reduced to firing Very lights at an opponent, who ‘put an explosive bullet’ into his engine. McCudden thought the new Fokker Dr.I triplane ‘an awfully comic old thing and I am awfully keen to see one out of control. I reckon it will be like a Venetian blind with a stone tied to it’. But he conceded that the German machine was ‘very fast’ with ‘a good climb’.
On 10 September 1917, James McCudden once more thanked ‘my dear Dad’ for a ‘very welcome letter’. His younger brother Jack (Anthony) was quite close, though not yet posted to a squadron. ‘Splendid weather at present, and a lot of flying’, he wrote. He repeated his complaint to Gran: ‘I have had a lot of trouble with my guns jamming of late and have lost a lot of Huns over it’. He had manoeuvred into position behind an enemy machine that morning, pulled the trigger and nothing happened. He concluded informally, but affectionately: ‘Well Dad old chap, I must close as I am up to strafe the Hun at 3pm.’
In the third week of September, McCudden claimed four victories. To Gran, whom he addressed as ‘Dear old Bean’, on 2 October he rather whimsically announced the award of a Bar to his MC. He modestly presumed it was ‘because I saluted the colonel smartly last time I passed him’. After achieving his eighteenth victory on 21 October, he took the silk cap of the pilot home, when he went on leave, to be displayed as a trophy of war in the family house.
Following his transfer from The Royal Dublin Fusiliers to the RFC in July and subsequent posting as an observer to No 55 Sqn, Capt Orlando Beater’s first operation was delayed by poor weather. He spent 19 September marking German aerodromes on his map, but the following day did take off on a bombing raid in a DH4. Even then a last-minute postponement occurred. The 5.30am take-off was put off due to ‘dull cloudy’ conditions until 2.30pm, when difficulty in starting the engine left Beater’s machine ‘several minutes’ behind the other five. Nevertheless during a two hour and ten minute flight it caught up and bombed the briefed target, coming back via Armentières and Ypres. Beater found it ‘very cold indeed’ at 16,000ft. ‘The wind pressure was simply terrific, my fingers ached, and I lost two valuable silk handkerchiefs, which were literally sucked out of my overcoat pocket and disappeared in a second’. He was astounded to see that movements on roads and even people ploughing were ‘quite distinct’. He decided that ‘flying would be extra specially nice if one could eliminate the cold, noise and draught’. The bomber force that day had been ‘fifteen or so’ with ‘numerous scouts’ as escort. ‘So we could fairly laugh at the thought of any Huns daring to attack us: none did as a matter of fact.’
Three days later Beater was on another type of operation, ‘a wide-eyed stunt’ of photographic reconnaissance. This time the engine would not start, so he and the pilot had arduously to transfer the camera and machine-gun to another machine. Once aloft, the machine laboured in ‘thick cloud’ and intense cold, which coated Beater’s gun with ice, the struts and bracing wires with hoar frost. For an hour the pilot strove to get above the cloud, but failed and they landed again not having crossed the front line.
On 27 September, Beater received distressing news from Elsie that her brother, Jack Manley, had been killed in action with No 19 Sqn. When heavy rain prevented flying on 4 October, his Squadron commander ‘very kindly’ gave Beater transport to visit his brother-in-law’s grave and former unit at Bailleul. The loss of his wife’s younger brother deeply affected the family.
On the other side of the line, on 7 September Gen Erich Ludendorff had the sad task of identifying the body of his stepson, Franz Pernet, and informing his distraught wife of her loss. Having recovered from serious injuries in a crash on the Eastern Front, Pernet displayed signs of stress when he resumed operations in the west. Writing to his mother shortly before his death in action, Pernet disclosed his feelings at the end of each day as he prepared for bed: ‘Thank God! You have another twelve hours to live.’
In the same month that Beater and Ludendorff suffered family bereavements through losses in action, Maj Harold Wyllie took command of No 102 Sqn, which formed at Marham, Norfolk, on 11 September 1917. Personnel of the Squadron travelled to Southampton shortly afterwards and on 18 September embarked for France. The steamer, bound for Le Havre and protected by escorting destroyers, was ‘very crowded with various drafts’, but as a field officer Wyllie spent ‘a comfortable night’ sharing a cabin with one other occupant. The Squadron disembarked at 9am the following day and marched to a rest camp on a hill just outside Le Havre. Officers were allocated tents and use of a mess run by the YMCA, where to Wyllie’s disgust, the ‘cook hadn’t any imagination’. Suffering from his culinary ineptitude did not last long, though.
The Squadron was ordered to Rouen on 21 September and duly boarded a paddle steamer on the Seine for a pleasant journey. ‘Perfect day with a hot sun and little wind and the trip up the river was one of the most interesting times I have ever spent,’ Wyllie recorded. He was ‘very sorry when sunset came and shut out the glorious vista of wooded hills and winding river with ever and again glimpses of quaint chateaux or churches peeping out from the mantle of green.’ Landing at Rouen that evening, Squadron personnel were met by transport which had preceded them from Portsmouth. There was no time to study ‘the wonderful medieval architecture’ of the city. The following afternoon, ‘looking like a travelling circus on the move’, No 102 Sqn and its transport set off via Foucamont and Abbeville for St André-aux-Bois, close to RFC HQ.
Wyllie once more enjoyed the scenery. He admired ‘a succession of most lush woods growing on steep slopes. I have seldom seen anything finer’. In clumps, which grew up to the side of the road, could be seen ‘endless tree trunks gradually dying away to ghostly grey shadows in the gloom of the inner wood. I am sure fairies play round those tree trunks.’ Arrival at St André on 24 September to take possession of the Squadron’s aeroplanes brought an abrupt end to his fantasies. Four days later, No 102 Sqn flew its FE2b pushers to the operational airfield of Le Hameau, 10 miles (16km) north-west of Arras.
Only hours before Wyllie reached St André-aux-Bois, during the evening of 23 September 1917 James McCudden cam
e upon a dog fight between an SE and a Fokker triplane. An official account of the subsequent exchanges noted that his and five other machines came to the SE’s aid and for some time the German skilfully coped with the seven British aeroplanes. Other British and German aeroplanes appeared and a mass of machines were soon wheeling and diving with the Fokker triplane prominent. After a while 2/Lt Arthur Rhys-Davids got into position slightly above the German and opened fire at close range with his Vickers and Lewis guns. He reported that the German ‘passed my right-hand wing by inches and went down. I zoomed. I saw him next with his engine apparently off, gliding west. I dived again and got one shot out of my Vickers.’ Rhys-Davids continued to fire as the German sped past him, but then became involved in another combat. McCudden watched the triplane ‘disappear into a thousand fragments’ as it hit the ground on the British side of the lines. When the wreckage was examined, it contained the body of Lt Werner Voss – credited with forty-eight victims, the last gained that morning. The fatal flight was his second of the day in a replacement Fokker, his own being under repair. Rhys-Davids wrote that Voss ‘fought magnificently’ against heavy odds and McCudden that ‘his flying was wonderful, his courage magnificent’.
Cavalry of the Clouds Page 19