While McCudden was enjoying success in his SE5a fighter, Tryggve Gran’s brief spell with No 70 Sqn ended with transfer to No 101 Sqn, a night bomber unit flying the BE2b, which he found ‘splendid and stable’. Prior to his first operation, he spent ‘a long day … in tense waiting’, before taking off at 9pm. Heading for Ypres, ‘the landscape turned red from huge fires and gun flashes’. The night was so dark that even at 2,000ft the ground could not be clearly picked out. ‘Suddenly I saw below me a wonderpiece of fireworks like a blue-gold river of fire coming up towards me’. As it got closer, Gran altered course, noting that the sky was lit by searchlights and twinkling stars. A searchlight caught him briefly as he approached the target, where he ‘made out the shapes of the railway lines and a station’. He recorded, ‘I let go a 112lb bomb. A pair of seconds and a flash – then the heavy thud. Again I pressed the lever and my last bomb went away. I heard a tremendous explosion and my work was done.’
Gran now ‘set course for full speed homewards’, pursued for some time by searchlights. Once clear, he ‘sat and stared into the night’ before he picked out the flashes of the British guns, and guided by the landing lights of his base, he put down safely.
Not long afterwards, a flight was not so routine. Operating again from Clairmarais Forest, near St Omer, Gran was badly hit in the leg, he managed to land safely, but soon found himself in hospital. There he caught sight of a report, which revealed that his injury was worse than the staff were telling him and he could well lose his foot. Gran was not uplifted by the fact that when the hut door opened, he could see the hospital cemetery where Chinese gravediggers were hard at work.
One morning a group came and stood right outside the door. Among them was a little broad-shouldered chap, who out of curiosity stuck his head inside the door. When he caught sight of me, a broad grin spread over his ugly face and in broken English he stammered out: ‘Me think you die next – me dig deep.’
He was promptly driven off by an angry orderly, but each morning he peeped in with the cheerful comment: ‘English officer not dead’. Gran managed to elude his professional attention although he would spend a further four months in hospital.
England, meanwhile, was being subjected to a disturbing bombing campaign, the Gotha force in Belgium having been supplemented by a unit of four-engine Reisenfluzeug, R-type or Giant, machines with a crew of five, 5,000lb bomb load and speed of 85mph. During the night of 2/3 September, two Giant bombers launched a night raid on London, causing eleven casualties and £3,486 of damage, but the shock outweighed the material impact. Between 24 September and 2 October London experienced eight night air-raids. Other parts of the south-east suffered too. One bomb on the naval barracks at Chatham, Kent, killed 131 and injured 90. In Folkestone, on the Channel coast, Kathleen MacKenzie complained of ‘such a lot of thud, thud and bang, bang, bang’.
The industrial penalty of these incursions was underlined when Winston Churchill, as Minister of Munitions, analysed the effect of the 24/25 September raid on production at Woolwich Arsenal. That night and the following day, interruption to work and absenteeism dramatically reduced the output of small arms ammunition by four-fifths. A post-war estimate, looking at the whole country, held that once the warning of a raid had been issued, 75 per cent of workers in the threatened area downed tools.
In the wake of the daylight raids on London in June and July, Lt Gen J.C. Smuts, the South African statesman and ‘de facto’ member of the War Cabinet (for legal reasons officially ‘in attendance’), had been tasked with examining ‘the air organisation generally and direction of aerial operations’. In detail he was to look at the response to air raids on Britain and the future roles of the RNAS and RFC.
On 19 July, Smuts’ first report concentrated on home defence. He deplored the lack of ‘a very heavy barrage of gunfire’ before raiders reached London, where only ‘a sporadic gun fire’ met them. Similarly, ‘very spasmodic or guerrilla attacks [by aeroplanes] failed to make an impression on the solid formation of the enemy’. Pilots, he believed, were ill-trained and too many separate authorities exercised responsibility for the capital’s protection. He recommended a single senior officer to co-ordinate London’s defences under the C-in-C Home Command, immediate attention to the disposition of anti-aircraft guns, the training of squadrons to fight in formation and sufficient air defence units to cope with any attack on the capital.
Smuts’ second report, dated 17 August 1917, looked at the future of aggressive air power. Two special influences could be detected behind it: the tumultuous demands for reprisal raids on Germany, and the calculation that soon a ‘considerable excess’ of aeroplanes would exist over the requirements of naval and land forces thus creating a ‘Surplus Air Fleet’. In June 1917 the Controller of Aeronautical Supplies, Sir William Weir, forecast that six months later British and overseas’ manufacturers would be producing 2,600 aero engines, against a combined RFC and RNAS requirement of 1,859. Smuts concluded, therefore, that in Spring 1918, ‘a great surplus’ would be available for ‘independent operations’; in other words, longdistance bombing. ‘The air battle front will be far behind on the Rhine and … its continuous and intense pressure against the chief industrial centres of the enemy, as well as his lines of communication, may form an important factor in bringing about peace’. A tantalising vision for the war weary.
It did not take long for an embryo long-range bombing force to materialise. In October, Lt Col Cyril Newall took command of the Forty-First Wing stationed at Ochey, 15 miles (24km) south-west of Nancy. It comprised No 55 Sqn with DH4s, No 100 Sqn flying FE2b pushers for day and No 16 RNAS Sqn with HP O/100s for night operations. Orders were to attack the coal and iron industries of Lorraine and Luxembourg, responsible for 80 per cent of German iron ore supplies. In reality, this small force suffered not only from lack of numerical strength but also the limited range of the FE2b and the winter weather. Its formation seemed a gesture rather than a serious undertaking. But, however unsatisfactory in practice, the principle of a separate long-range bombing force had been established and the Ochey wing formed the basis for later expansion.
Orlando Beater found himself part of this new organisation. On 10 October, No 55 Sqn was ordered south to ‘Nancy or some such place’, which entailed a 2–3 day train journey for the observers. En route, they passed through Colombey, ‘crowded with Yank troops’. Eventually they reached the aerodrome near Ochey, which No 55 Sqn would share with No 100 Sqn. Both squadrons had been withdrawn from the RFC Order of Battle, adding weight to the argument that a separate bombing force would weaken support for ground troops.
Former French billets were taken over, where Beater counted himself lucky to find a bed: ‘Sleeping on the floor is no catch at all’. Two RFC squadrons and one RNAS squadron were to occupy the airfield. On Tuesday 16 October, six HP O/100s flew in, ‘the last one in took the top off a tree on the edge of the aerodrome and levelled a telegraph pole, but landed with only slight damage to the lower wing’. The naval contingent had arrived.
Beater was soon in action, the next day taking part in the Wing’s initial raid on Saarbrücken, 80 miles to the north-east, leaving Ochey at 1.10pm. The bombers encountered a ‘fair dose of Archie’ shortly after crossing the line and more near Toulquemont. The batteries around Saarbrücken
… put up a good barrage, and I could hear them go wouf-wouf-wouf, and on one or two were near enough to make the bus rock. Looking over the side, I could see the guns winking away below and fully sympathised with the feelings of a hunted pheasant. We dropped several bombs on Burbach [works] and the remainder on Saarbrücken, and I saw one delightful explosion in a big factory, which must have half wrecked the place and certainly started a large fire, which I could see burning long after we left the town.
Beater spotted ‘Hun scouts several thousand feet below’, but none worried them. He was not impressed by the flying conditions: ‘I was cold in the air, for we touched 17,000ft coming back and as usual my cheeks and chin were frosted’.
Th
e operation on 21 October, Beater’s tenth, to a target just west of Saarbrücken was less peaceful. Taking off at 2pm, the bombers circled for an hour and a half to gain height, crossing the line at 3.30 and enduring ‘the first whiff of Archie’. They duly dropped their bombs at 4.10, but as they turned away ‘a circus of Huns’ appeared ‘fairly asking for trouble and they certainly got it’. Beater fired a double contraption, which comprised two Lewis machine-guns clamped together. He raked a German to his right ‘fore and aft … When I last saw him he was spurting smoke in curious trailing wisps from engine and petrol tanks’. Another enemy dived below ‘and standing up on the seat I managed to rattle a few shots round him’. Beater found the double-gun ‘a bit awkward and too clumsy for rapid movement. After firing half a magazine one gun stopped with a broken extractor’. He did have one minor personal success, having fitted his helmet with a face mask, ‘which kept my chin beautifully warm’. As they had not exceeded 13,000ft, he fired his guns with bare hands ‘and did not freeze my fingers’.
During an operation on 30/31 October against the Volkingen steel works, Beater’s compass froze at 15,000ft ‘and my fingers weren’t far off either’. But he did have a fur-lined mask over his lower face and a fur collar of which he was glad ‘for the wind was icy’. The month ended on a depressing note with the ‘very bad news from Italy’ that the Germans had won a major victory at Caporetto on the Isonzo River. Between 24 October and 12 November German and Austrian troops drove the Italians back 70 miles (112km) to the Piave river, where the line was stabilised. By then, the Italians had suffered 45,000 killed or wounded and 275,000 captured.
After detaching squadrons to Ypres and the new bombing wing at Ochey, the RNAS continued to attack enemy targets from Coudekerque, its base near Dunkirk. Harold (known also as Horace) Buss, who began the War patrolling the Channel from Kent, had been flying operationally in HP O/100s from Coudekerque since April 1917. In July, August and September he took part in night raids dropping twelve or fourteen 112lb bombs on the Gotha airfields at Ghistelles and St Denis Westrem. These were punctuated with attacks on the Ostend railway sidings, Middlekerke ammunition dump, Thouront railway station, Bruges docks and the Zeebrugge harbour mole. Often alternative targets were attacked in adverse conditions. On 13 July, ‘unable to find aerodrome owing to bad visibility’, Buss deposited six bombs on ‘a row of lights showing at Bruges on the canal bank’ and eight more on Thouront railway junction. During the night of 2/3 September, he had more success at Bruges, where ‘numerous direct hits on the docks, submarine shelters and railway sidings and the quay were obtained’, which brought Buss a Distinguished Service Cross (DSC). Ghistelles suffered an unscheduled attack on 4 September: ‘Started to raid Bruges Docks, but found smoke screen completely covering this objective so dropped bombs on Ghistelles aerodrome. Good results were obtained, bombs exploding among sheds and on the aerodrome.’ On 10 September, an attack on St Denis Westrem in ‘poor visibility’ was completed after circling for an hour to identify the target. Buss would remain at Coudekerque until January 1918, when he took command of No 16 Naval Squadron (later No 216 Sqn RAF) at Ochey.
The threat to Britain and warships at sea from Zeppelins had by no means disappeared, and success against one of these airships still caused a stir. FSL Bernard Smart RNAS, flying a Sopwith Pup off HMS Yarmouth on 21 August 1917, accounted for L.23 with machine-gun fire close to Lodjberg in Denmark; a feat which brought him the DSO. Writing to his parents, he began: ‘I’m afraid that when you get the latest bit of news your poor old heads will begin to ache with excitement, still you must take it as calmly as possible.’ He revealed that he was ‘that portion of our light forces which brought down the Zep [sic] off Jutland’. Smart admitted not to having ‘slept a wink since’ as he was ‘so bucked with myself’. He apologised for his tardy letter, ‘but have spent all my time since my return visiting Admirals and Commodores and the big men of the fleet, and have not had a chance to get ashore or even the time to write. Saw [Admiral] Beatty this morning, and he is awfully bucked and spoke very decently.’ Smart concluded: ‘This is only a note to give you the wheeze,’ for they must ‘keep it dark … as the longer the Huns think it is brought down by gunfire, they will merely give orders to keep well clear of our warships, and so there will be many other chances’.
By the close of October 1917, with the battle for Passchendaele Ridge entering its final stage, as a result of Lt Gen J.C. Smuts’ two reports and influenced by the German night attacks on England, a fierce debate was taking place in London about the future of the air services. Senior naval and military officers, politicians and influential advocates of air power argued vehemently on paper and in person about the wisdom of amalgamating the RFC and RNAS into a separate air arm – a third service beside the Royal Navy and Army – and the establishment of an independent Air Ministry.
Irrespective of this manoeuvring, at the Front an enemy still had to be fought by the airmen, who in Lloyd George’s flowery tribute of 29 October represented ‘the cavalry of the clouds … the knighthood of this war’.
10
Yet More Plans: The Fourth Winter
‘Low clouds and misty weather’
The struggle for Passchendaele Ridge, which had started with such high hopes on 31 July, culminated on 6 November when Canadian troops took the village of Passchendaele. Its buildings were in ruins, the surrounding countryside devastated, but the low rise which overlooked Ypres lay in Allied hands. Four days later, the battle officially ended.
Major fighting now switched 50 miles (80km) south to Cambrai, an important enemy communications centre 6 miles (10km) behind the front line and 20 miles (32km) south-east of Arras. Supposedly weak enemy positions offered the attractive prospect of a swift break-through: tanks would be used to spearhead the assault, and great emphasis was placed on a short, sharp preliminary artillery barrage. Comprehensive photography by the RFC meant that targets were identified silently, without need for shells to register their positions, the range and elevation from British batteries being worked out in advance.
At 6.20am on 20 November 1917, the Battle of Cambrai commenced, with 374 tanks leading six infantry divisions into action. Five hours later soldiers of the British Third Army were in the enemy’s support trenches. That day a significant inroad was achieved, but 179 tanks were disabled and no decisive breakthrough made. Lack of tank reserves proved critical. The advance in the south was subsequently halted for troops to concentrate on penetrating German defences in the north of the battle area. However, difficulty in transferring heavy artillery to the new axis of attack and arrival of enemy reinforcements combined to frustrate the change of plan, and by 29 November significant forward movement had finished.
The RFC deployed 289 aeroplanes to support the attack: six squadrons for close cover of the troops, seven of fighters, one fighter-reconnaissance squadron and two flights of DH4 bombers able to carry two 230lb or four 112lb bombs. Covering the Cambrai area, the Germans had only seventy-eight aeroplanes of which just twelve were fighters. Exclusive of forty-nine bombers with the Forty-First Wing at Ochey, the RFC now had 912 aeroplanes available on the Western Front.
The aerial plan for 20 November envisaged fighter patrols to observe ‘any movements by road or rail’. If the weather was too bad for formation flying, aeroplanes were to fly singly or in pairs. Sopworth Camels would bomb and machine-gun selected German airfields at low level, offensive patrols against enemy troops and installations be carried out by Armstrong Whitworth FK8 and RAF RE8 machines. DH4s were to bomb the railway station at Le Cateau. More Camels and DH5s would attack enemy artillery batteries, and SE5s stand by to shoot down enemy observation balloons. During the first night of fighting, Douai and Somain stations were to be bombed.
On the day, conditions were far from ideal. A Camel pilot of 46 Sqn recalled that
… low clouds and misty weather made flying difficult … In the battle area the smoke rose to the mist and formed a barrier not very pleasant to penetrate at so
low an altitude. A few casualties occurred through pilots flying into the ground, but the majority were from ground fire.
The first ‘show’ that morning involved passing over tanks through a ‘thick haze of smoke’. Capt Arthur Lee retained
… vivid pictures of little groups of infantry behind each tank, trudging forward with cigarettes alight, of flames leaping from disabled tanks with small helpless groups of infantry standing around, of the ludicrous expressions of amazement on the upturned faces of German troops as we passed a few feet above their trenches.
‘Owing to the low clouds’ Lee explained, ‘it was not easy to retain one’s bearings especially after a few startled turns to avoid collision with one’s companions.’ During this first operation of the day, Lee became separated from his formation and after flying by compass and unexpectedly crossing the battlefield on the way back, he landed in a field ‘to discover my bearings’. He realised that he was actually east of Cambrai behind enemy lines, after spotting a nearby road packed with German troops and vehicles, ‘I had to make a hurried take-off …’
With a synchronised Vickers machine-gun mounted above the front fuselage, the DH5 single-seat fighters of No 64 and No 68 squadrons, the latter one of three Australian squadrons on the Western Front, were involved with No 46 Sqn’s Camels in the opening action on 20 November. None of the pilots had experience in low-level attacks. From the three squadrons, nine machines failed to return, four were wrecked on landing, thirteen badly damaged by small-arms fire – approximately 30 per cent of those which set out and an average figure for all such low-level operations throughout the battle. On 23 November, the Germans committed Richthofen’s wing to the fray, with their aerial strength by now significantly enhanced after the initial shock.
When the advance petered out on 29 November, the British had gained approximately 3 miles (5km) of ground in the centre of a new undulating line. The next day the Germans launched an assault south of this battlefield across the St Quentin Canal towards Gouzeaucourt with strong air cover. According to one infantry brigade: ‘The massing of low-flying aeroplanes going immediately in front of the enemy’s infantry caused many casualties and proved very demoralising’. Richthofen’s ‘circus’ was prominent in support of the two-seaters which so effectively bombed and strafed British infantry; a tactic adopted by the RFC ten days earlier. Before their incursion had been stemmed on 7 December, the Germans ejected the Allies from previously hard-won territory below the Cambrai pocket.
Cavalry of the Clouds Page 20