German airmen were by no means toothless. On 25 March, Richthofen secured his 69th and 70th victims, two days later his wing flew 118 sorties in the vicinity of Albert and shot down thirteen aeroplanes. That day, the Germans claimed thirty-three machines, seven of them to anti-aircraft fire, one to ‘a railway sentry post’. The RFC recorded sixteen confirmed ‘kills’ with four more driven down out of control. During the night of 26/27 March, German bombers heavily struck Doullens aerodrome.
James McCudden was not involved in any of this activity. On 2 March, he noted that he had flown 777 hours 20 minutes as a pilot. Since he joined No 56 Sqn 16 August 1917, this unit had claimed 175 enemy machines either destroyed or driven down out of control, but these successes came at a cost. In that period, fourteen of the Squadron’s pilots had been killed or were missing, seven made PoW. Shortly afterwards, McCudden went on leave to England prior to a non-combat appointment, a rest which would soon be cruelly interrupted.
On 19 March 1918, his mother received a letter from No 84 Sqn commander, Maj Sholto Douglas. ‘I am sorry to say your son [John Anthony, known as Anthony in the RFC and Jack to his family, aged 21] went missing yesterday.’ Douglas could not be certain about what happened, ‘everybody was busy scrapping. All we know is that he did not return.’ The Squadron commander tried to be encouraging: ‘We can only hope for the best’; but it was ‘quite likely … a lucky shot hit his engine or radiator’. In which case, he could have come down and been taken prisoner, ‘One cannot say. I sincerely hope that you will get definite news of his safety very soon.’ Douglas rated him ‘quite one of my best pilots, and I am sure that given a little luck he would have emulated the success of his elder brother.’ He went on unconsciously to echo the concerns of James, when he assessed Jack’s ability at Joyce Green. The younger McCudden was ‘extraordinarily brave – too brave if anything. He often took risks that 99 per cent of humanity would refuse to take.’
Anthony McCudden had taken off at 10am on 18 March in one of the operations against Busigny. He became involved in a melee with fifty enemy machines and was one of eight RFC machines that failed to return. James wrote to Maj Douglas from the RFC Club in London on 22 March. He hoped that his brother ‘may be alright [sic]. Rather bad luck. I wish you would let me know as soon as possible any news received concerning him.’ Unknown to Douglas or the McCudden family, the body of John Anthony had already been buried by the Germans with full military honours.
On 26 March, five days after the initial German assault, a major move was made to improve Allied activity on the Western Front, when the French general, Ferdinand Foch, was appointed ‘to co-ordinate the action of the British and French Armies’, an arrangement to which the Americans and Italians subsequently adhered. Foch, therefore, became Generalissimo or overall Allied commander. Another highly significant development from the British standpoint was amalgamation of the RFC and RNAS into the Royal Air Force on 1 April 1918; RNAS squadrons being renumbered by adding 200.
That same day, Foch drew up directives ‘with the object of assuring co-operation between the British and French Air Services’. He wanted reconnaissance extended to the line St Quenton-Cambrai-Douai to ensure ‘air observation covers every part of the area of approach to the battle zone’. As to bombing, ‘the essential condition of success is the concentration of every resource of the British and French bombing formations on such few of the most important of the enemy’s railway junctions as it may be possible to put out of action with certainty, and to keep out of action.’ So far as the British were concerned, this meant attacking the stations at Péronne, Cambrai, Aubigny-au-Bac and Douai.
Foch emphasised that ‘the first duty of fighting machines is to assist the troops on the ground by incessant attacks, with bombs and machine-guns, on columns, concentrations or bivouacs.’ He believed that the Allies had failed to make their numerical superiority count, by too wide a dispersal of resources. On the British front south of Arras, 822 German machines currently faced 645 RAF. Exclusive of aeroplanes on both sides committed to naval operations, to the north 393 RAF opposed 185 German machines. At the same time, some 2,000 French aeroplanes were deployed against 367 German. So it was, in Foch’s view, utterly illogical that on the Somme battlefront the enemy should currently enjoy superiority of numbers. However, within days, German advances in the north would undermine the logic of Foch’s analysis.
More immediately, on 1 April Toby Watkins’ RNAS squadron became No 205 Sqn RAF and celebrated its new status with a return to ‘high level bombing in formation … well behind the Hun lines’. Unfortunately, the bombing was ‘very inaccurate. Everyone too worn out to take a good line’. Enemy anti-aircraft fire was heavy and accurate and ‘nearly every bus hit by splinters of HE or shrapnel’. Watkins ‘experienced my closest Archie burst on this raid. Was tooling along half asleep, lulled by the coughing of many Archie bursts.’ There came a big flash ‘followed by a gigantic cough and a tremendous shock right through the machine which made me think that I’d “bought it” in a direct hit.’ He was through the smoke of the burst almost before he had seen it ‘spreading out from nothing (like a huge umbrella point towards one being quickly opened) in the uncanny way of the HE Archie’.
On 2 April Watkins bombed Rosières aerodrome. When attacked by a large force of Pfalz scouts, he ‘managed to cloud dodge them’. It would be his last operation. The following day, suffering from exhaustion, he was ordered to hospital at Etaples. His first operation had been flown on 16 February, so the intensity of completing forty-four operations, given breaks for bad weather and travel between airfields during the retreat, had clearly been overwhelming. On 7 April, he wrote: ‘Spent most of the last 96hrs sleeping … was examined by a Medical Board – a fearsome test lasting several hours, and … ordered home for a month’s complete rest and a spell of Home Service to follow.’ Watkins would not return to operations before the Armistice.
Even as British airmen strove to counter the German onslaught, operations were continuing against enemy port installations and German bomber bases in Belgium. Flying in an HP O/100 from Dunkirk Observer Sub Lt Aubrey Horn noted ‘about twenty’ Gotha ‘jumping off places’ in the Bruges-Thourout area; Thourout being ‘a favourite port of call’.
The dangerous progress of the German forces farther south meant that during the night of 26/27 March, Horn’s crew was ordered to attack Valenciennes railway junction through which enemy reinforcements were moving. Armed with twelve 112lb bombs, the Handley Page would be in the air from 9.45pm on 26 March until 07.30am on the 27th. Horn carried out the bomb dropping duties on this operation.
The bomb sight and dropping lever had been moved from the forrard [sic] gun pit to a place amidships … Lying down on the floor I slid back a panel thus revealing the landscape below. We ran down wind, turned and got nose into the wind again. So strong was the breeze that the machine just held its own making very little headway.
Eventually the aeroplane reached the target and ‘I slowly loosed the medicine’. So far so good.
On the way back, enveloped in mist and buffeted by strong winds, suddenly and unexpectedly at 4,000ft the crew found itself over Ghistelles aerodrome. The pilot swiftly climbed into the cloud again for ‘being as low as we were, we should have been an excellent source of amusement for the gunners for we were silhouetted against the mist’. Above the thick mist at 7,000ft, the sky was clear. But the bomber had to descend through it when nearing Dunkirk. At 2,000ft Horn identified a large glow as the Belgian furnace near Furnes, east of Dunkirk inside the British lines. On closer inspection, it was a well-lit town, which confused him. He had seen Ostend with its colourful anti-aircraft defences some distance behind and therefore discounted the possibility of a compass error taking the machine over neutral Holland. The crew decided this must be Calais, 25 miles (40km) west of Dunkirk, but there was no response to their Very lights. When the starboard engine began to misfire, the pilot put down on a convenient stretch of sand. After the crew clambered out, a counci
l of war became ‘slightly obsessed with the possibility of not being on Calais sands at all’. Eventually, they found a telephone and to their intense relief, got through to a nearby British aerodrome.
The day after its formation, the RAF received a welcome morale boost, when news was published that twenty-three-year-old James McCudden, already holder of the Croix de Guerre, MM, MC and Bar, DSO and Bar had gained the VC. The citation explained that 2/Lt (Temp. Capt) McCudden had to date accounted for fifty-four enemy machines, of which forty-two were ‘definitely’ destroyed, twelve driven down out of control. On two occasions, he shot down four two-seaters in a single day. Single-handedly he attacked five German scouts on 30 January 1918, destroying two and only breaking away when the ammunition for his Lewis gun had run out and the belt of the Vickers had broken.
As a patrol leader, he has at all times shown the utmost gallantry and skill, not only in the manner in which he has attacked and destroyed the enemy, but in the way he has during several aerial fights protected the newer members of his flight, thus keeping down their casualties to a minimum.
Maj Gen Sir Hugh Trenchard sent a hand-written note from the Air Ministry, Hotel Cecil, Strand, London to McCudden still on leave in England: ‘I am glad not only because you have got what you have so well deserved but because of all the others in your old squadron and in the whole Flying Corps who get the reflected credit and are encouraged.’
McCudden’s correspondence once more revealed dismay that ‘the papers are making a fuss again about the ordinary things one does … I’m so tired of this limelight business’. McCudden soon escaped to an instructor’s post at No 1 School of Aerial Fighting in Scotland, where he was reputedly prone to filling a waste paper basket with the contents of his in-tray. Another exploit was less conclusive, when he contrived to take another young lady for an aerial joy ride, this time the sister of a fellow instructor. The engine of the Avro 504 cut out, forcing McCudden to land in a suitable field. Except that the machine rolled into a gully and turned over, leaving an abashed RAF captain and Mary Latta to crawl from under the wreckage.
Across the Channel, the end of the enemy thrust towards Amiens did not signal the abandonment of German aggression. On 9 April Ludendorff opened another 30-mile (45km) front astride the Lys river in Flanders, threatening to encircle Ypres in the north and aiming at the railway junction of Hazebrouck in the south. The day before, Lt Henry Blundell with No 21 Squadron had written in his diary: ‘Great excitement caused by an S.O.S. call being received on wireless’. His mood changed dramatically on 9 April:
In the afternoon we had a great alarm. News came through that the Boche had broken through and taken Armentières and all machines were got out, four bombs on each. Every pilot had to stand by his machine ready for instant flight. It was arranged that B Flight should leave the ground first and fly down to Armentières sector and drop bombs on the Huns and fire from above 500ft all our ammunition on advancing troops. Everyone had fearful wind up. After ½hr suspense I went up on a weather test. I found the clouds at 500ft and could only see the ground immediately underneath. As a result nobody went up.
So serious had the situation become that on 11 April Sir Douglas Haig declared: ‘With our backs to the wall and believing in the justice of our cause … every position must be held to the last man. There must be no retirement.’ The Germans advanced to within 5 miles (8km) of Hazebrouck, retook Passchendaele Ridge on 13 April and twelve days later captured Mount Kemmel south-west of Ypres. On 13 April Blundell’s airfield was abandoned: ‘the Boche started shelling us badly, so we cleared off quickly in our machines’. In the haste, two aeroplanes crashed on take-off, their crews burnt to death. At length, on 30 April, faced by resolute action from reorganised British, French and American forces, the German attack came to a halt, but not before it had driven significant inroads into the Allied line.
Shortly before the Germans’ Flanders incursion halted, the RAF enjoyed a memorable triumph. For months, Manfred von Richthofen had been the scourge of British airmen exploiting the power of his ‘circus’ and personally notching up eighty kills on 20 April 1918 (a total unsurpassed by any other airman on the Western Front). The very next day leading a flight of six machines against eight Camels of No 209 Sqn near Arras, Richthofen’s aeroplane was brought down, as he chased an 81st victim. Canadian Capt Roy Brown was credited with his demise, but an Australian artillery battery also claimed to have shot him down and yet another source has credited an Australian machine-gunner with Richthofen’s loss. The Germans were convinced that ground fire brought him down.
During his last leave, Richthofen had shown distinct signs of strain, such as being uncharacteristically temperamental. His mother remarked, ‘I believe he has seen death too often.’ Noting that his hair had thinned and the after-effects of his head wound were still troubling him, she added: ‘He does not look good … Previously it seemed to me he was like young Siegfried and invulnerable.’ As Richthofen’s sister Ilse bade him farewell at the station, she urged him to take care, ‘as we do want to see you again’. The suspicion must linger that, battle-weary, mentally exhausted and never having fully recovered from the wound suffered in July 1917 which left him with recurring headaches, Richthofen’s judgement failed on the fatal day. For, contrary to his own standing orders, totally without support he pursued 2/Lt Wilfred May’s lone Sopwith Camel over the Allied lines. At the very least, he miscalculated the strength and direction of the wind blowing unusually from the east. Richthofen was two weeks short of his 26th birthday and allegedly after his eightieth victory the day before his adjutant had urged him to take a non-flying post. ‘A paper-shuffler? No. I am staying at the Front,’ was the reply.
At 4pm on 22 April, the Allies buried Manfred Count von Richthofen at Bertangles with full military honours. Capt Freddie West witnessed part of the action which concluded with Richthofen’s death. In March 1918, although he did occasionally fly with other observers, he paired up with Lt James Alexander Gordon (Alec) Haslam, nine months younger than him, who like West had enjoyed a chequered war. After attending Rugby School and destined to read medicine at Cambridge, instead he opted for the shortened wartime course at The Royal Military Academy Woolwich, was commissioned into The Royal Artillery in 1916 and subsequently served in France. Recognising the value of aerial co-operation for gunners, Haslam volunteered for the RFC but was turned down for being too tall and heavy. He was eventually accepted in 1917, though the War Office ruled that as gunner officer he would be more use as an observer than a pilot. Ironically, by then pilots were conducting the artillery spotting duties, observers were primarily manning machine-guns. In these roles, West and Haslam flew in an Armstrong Whitworth FK 8 during the Ludendorff Offensive. They were, as both admitted, ‘like chalk and cheese’;West energetic and restless, Haslam scholarly and meticulous but each immensely respected the other and would do so throughout their lives. As Haslam remarked: ‘Here was somebody who would get me into many scrapes, but he would get me out of them too.’
During the morning of 21 April 1918, West and Haslam flew to a designated location close to their airfield to carry out aerial machine-gun practice. On the way back, West saw a ‘scrap’ involving a red triplane but skirted the danger. Over lunch, the rumour spread that Richthofen had been brought down. Possibly because he realised that his observer would disapprove, West took a fellow pilot Lt Richard Grice to validate the story. They duly found the wreckage and were shown the German pilot’s body by Australians, who gave West a small piece of the triplane’s fabric cut into the shape of their home country.
The very next day, enemy anti-aircraft guns ‘shot away’ the aileron controls of West and Haslam’s machine, so that they force-landed near Bertaucourt and were fortunate to walk away unscathed from the wreckage. On 1 May West and Haslam were called into the office by Maj Trafford Leigh-Mallory, the squadron commander, and to their embarrassment (‘many others had done far more than us’) were told that they had both been awarded a MC. The citation for
each noted that, while on patrol, they had spotted fifteen enemy motor vehicles. Unable to call up artillery support, West and Haslam flew 4.5 miles (7km) into enemy territory at 3,800ft ‘in the face of strong opposition from the ground, and dropped four bombs, obtaining direct hits on the lorries and doing considerable damage to their personnel’. A fortnight later, reconnoitring the area of an expected enemy attack they flew below the 200ft cloud base to obtain ‘most valuable information’ and successfully directed artillery onto a concentration of German infantry. ‘Throughout the operations their work in co-operation with our artillery was always of the greatest value, and their enterprise in attacking enemy troops and transport with bombs and machine-gun fire was splendid.’
Also on 1 May 1918, 2/Lt Alan McLeod gained Canada’s second aerial VC. Attacked by eight enemy machines on 27 March, he manoeuvred so that his observer could drive down three out of control. By now McLeod had sustained several wounds and soon afterwards, as he continued the fight, the petrol tank was set alight. According to the citation:
He then climbed out onto the left bottom plane, controlling his machine from the side of the fuselage, and by side-slipping steeply, kept the flames to one side, thus enabling the observer to continue firing until the ground was reached.
The machine came down in No Man’s Land, where it was fired on from the enemy trenches. Although seriously injured, McLeod dragged his wounded observer from the wreckage ‘before falling himself from exhaustion and loss of blood’ and being rescued by friendly troops. Shortly after receiving his award from the King in London, McLeod went home to Stonewall, Manitoba. Still recovering from his wounds, he contracted pneumonia and would die five days before the Armistice.
Gen Erich Ludendorff’s ambitions had not been curbed by failure at Amiens and in Flanders. On 27 May he attacked the French in the Chemin de Dames sector in his third spring offensive. Following the mauling they had taken in March, supported by an RE8 squadron five British divisions had been redeployed in this region. Between 22 and 24 May, distant clouds of dust in front of the French were reported by the RE8s, which, due to an agreed demarcation of responsibility with the French, they did not investigate further. Thus, enemy heavy artillery units were able to conceal themselves together with infantry regiments in thick woods. The 1am barrage along a 27-mile (43km) front from Brimont to Leuilly, which shattered the night silence on the Aisne, and the enemy’s infantry attack at dawn, came as a surprise.
Cavalry of the Clouds Page 24