This success was confirmed independently by another pilot. Just after this encounter,
… another enemy aircraft dived on us and when he got to about 60 or 70ft distance, observer fired about 100 rounds into him, when large quantity of flames burst out and machine went down ablaze near Soyecourt. When over Soyecourt, observer fired a further long burst into another enemy aircraft at a very short distance which stalled, went into a spin and went down hopelessly out of control, and was seen to crash near Soyecourt.
Keating and Simpson’s adventures were not yet over:
Immediately after this machine disappeared, observer saw another aircraft diving on our tail, and before he could change drums the enemy aircraft had approached to within 40ft of our machine. Observer then fired about 60rnds straight into this enemy aircraft which fell over on its side and spun right into the ground west of Soyecourt.
Keating concluded his report in which he had effectively claimed four enemy shot down: ‘During the combat our machine was so badly shot about that we were forced to land near Lamotte-en-Santerre with damaged engine, tail, propeller and undercarriage.’
From the outset of the Battle of Amiens, a special effort was made to establish close cooperation between aeroplanes and tanks. Maj Trafford Leigh-Mallory’s No 8 Sqn, equipped with eighteen Armstrong Whitworth FK8 two-seat reconnaissance machines, had been attached to the Tank Corps since 1 July. Each of the Squadron’s three flights was allotted to a tank brigade. Leigh-Mallory, a contemporary of Arthur Tedder at Magdalene College, Cambridge, reported that
a thoroughly good liaison was established between the flights and the unit with whom they were working. Tank Officers came to stay with the flights, and were taken up in aeroplanes, and pilot and observers stayed with the tank battalions and went for rides in tanks.
However, attempts to communicate by wireless proved unsatisfactory.
Leigh-Mallory explained that ‘the great difficulty’ for the tanks ‘was to produce an aerial which would be practicable both for battle use, and at the same time be of sufficient length to develop the full efficiency of the wireless telephone’. Results were ‘indifferent’, so resort was made to visual signals. Despite all the preliminary work, in practice the most reliable means of communicating between air and ground proved the dropping of messages. Leigh-Mallory concluded: ‘It was a pity that there was not longer than one month in which to prepare for the battle … [however] this liaison work stood the Squadron in very good stead as soon as the fighting commenced’.
Once the mist had cleared on 8 August, flares were successfully employed by the infantry to indicate progress to contact patrol aeroplanes. When the supply ran out, alternative coloured metal disks and strips of cloth quickly became tarnished or dirty. The fluid nature of the battle posed even more problems for airborne observers inexperienced in the nature of the battlefield, especially in identification of enemy movements. A post-operational RAF report acknowledged that
nothing at present in the training of corps contact observers can compensate for the lack of army experience … As an example, the enemy puts down a barrage – the observer does not connect this with a raid or counter attack and misses the approach of the enemy infantry.
One lesson emerging from the Battle of Amiens, which lasted 8–12 August, was the need to deal quickly with enemy anti-tank guns. Single guns had been responsible for ‘knocking out’ up to eight tanks and seriously destroying the momentum of an attack. Thus, eliminating these weapons became ‘of paramount importance’. All machines ‘engaged in low-flying attack … conducting Artillery, Contact, and Counter-attack patrols’ were required to watch the ground in front of advancing British tanks ‘for their appearance and for their flashes. It is not possible to emphasise too strongly the duty and responsibility of pilots and observers in regard of the foregoing’. Leigh-Mallory confirmed that for the remainder of the war
… our policy changed. Instead of sending all machines up on contact and counter-attack patrol, as many machines were reserved for anti-tank gun work as possible, and just the number of machines were reserved as would ensure the battalions and brigades being supplied with all the information they required.
Hair-raising adventures were not confined to the Front, as the former Oundle schoolboy John Jeyes discovered, after having completed a prolonged spell in France and been posted as an instructor to Worthy Down, Hampshire, in January 1918. Returning to the aerodrome one day, he decided to call on his parents, as he was flying alone. He identified a convenient field, ‘but found it was not an easy approach and not a big field’. On the third attempt he did manage to put down in the middle of the pasture, ‘but there was a sharp dip in the field, so just as I was coming to rest on landing, my machine tipped up on its nose and bent my prop’. There was ‘great excitement when they found out who had arrived’, but unfortunately he missed his sister, who had returned to Northampton that morning. Jeyes had to off-load equipment from the machine, which was in no condition to fly, and wait for a party from the nearest RAF station to collect it. Fortunately before the party arrived somebody siphoned off the petrol, which made it look as if he had run out of fuel.
When there was no flying at Worthy Down, Jeyes and a fellow instructor would go up to London and take two nurses out on the river in the afternoon or to a show in the evening. In July one of them, Grace, secured a hospital post in Winchester, not far from Worthy Down, and asked Jeyes to take her for a flight. She was not allowed on the airfield so Jeyes arranged to make the trip from a field close to Micheldever station. In due course, he landed; Grace having taken a train from Winchester and walked the half mile from the station. Jeyes saw her approaching as he put down and left the engine ticking over while he removed the sandbags used as ballast from the passenger’s seat.
As Grace settled in her seat, Jeyes swung the prop and rapidly jumped in because the idling engine was in danger of overheating. Due to this he dare not taxi, so began to take off at once. ‘We went down the field which rolled down to a sort of valley,’ Jeyes recalled. ‘Faster and faster we went, then up the slope to the other side of the field towards a big 12–20ft hedge. The wheels of the machine were still on the ground and we were touching 60–70mph. I think the wind was quite strong and we were still not lifting, and bang – we went through the hedge and the struts between the wings were full of branches and twigs.’ The aeroplane started to leave the ground with these various unscheduled attachments, prompting Jeyes to abandon plans to climb. He throttled back and put down quickly in the adjoining field, not quite smoothly: ‘The crash through the hedge had completely bent my undercarriage, so of course the machine just slid along the ground and the wings wrapped round the fuselage. We came to rest in a bit of a mess.’ Surprisingly, pilot and passenger emerged from the wreckage unscathed.
Grace immediately tramped back to the station, thoughts unrecorded: ‘I did not want her hanging around when the police arrived.’ Once she was out of sight, Jeyes went to telephone for help and then kept guard over the remains of his machine, which was another write-off. ‘I knew quite well that I could get into a spot of bother if it was found out what I had been doing … Fortunately nobody had witnessed the landing or the attempted take-off and crash.’ Jeyes and Grace did meet again in Winchester ‘for tea and a chat, [but] I felt I had not made a very good impression’.
In France, Capt Freddie West had three crashes in somewhat different circumstances. Taking off at 5am on 8 August, according to squadron records ‘the valleys were already coated with thick mist, and within an hour the whole country for miles was obscured.’ Nonetheless, West and his observer Haslam stayed up and flying low saw through gaps in the mist that tanks had captured Demuin where the bridge remained intact. After dropping a message detailing the progress of French troops on the right, West made for base, which he located by rockets sent up to aid him. Getting the AW FK8 down was more difficult. On the third attempt, he virtually stalled the machine as he came in and suddenly a hangar appeared ahead throug
h the gloom. West side-slipped, scraped the side of the building and hit the ground. He suffered a badly cut lip, Haslam a damaged knee.
Despite their injuries, the two returned to duty next day and ‘again did excellent work’. At 10.45am they dropped another message reporting the progress of French troops. Fifteen minutes later, West spied a German train being set on fire by an advancing tank. Shortly afterwards, he came across four tanks under attack from ‘a great number of hostile infantry with machine-guns’. West dived five times on the enemy, ‘who retired in disorder’. However, his engine had been put out of action by small arms. With difficulty, he made his way to safety and crash-landed for the second day running.
Undaunted, on 10 August West and Haslam were up on tank contact patrol again. Just after identifying enemy armour near Rosières, West spotted considerable activity around Roye almost 5 miles (8km) behind the enemy front line. He made for the spot and ‘wrought great havoc among [artillery] limbers and transport with his bombs and machine-guns’. On the way back, the Armstrong Whitworth was attacked by seven fighters. West’s left leg was smashed by an explosive bullet and the wounded limb ‘flopped around’ until the pilot wedged it beside the control column. Haslam, who was hit in the right ankle, continued to fire on the enemy, as West gradually edged across the lines. In spite of his grievous injury, he managed to get the damaged machine down and make his report on the location of the German reserves before passing out. As he remarked, ‘I was very keen to get the information back.’ When he came round, he was lying on a stretcher in a ruined church. Without anaesthetic (he was given a bottle of whisky to induce unconsciousness), his leg was removed. Some time later, waking from a nap in hospital, he heard a ‘tick-a-tick-tick’ sound and realised that the other patients were rattling toothbrushes in their mugs. An orderly then brought him a newspaper announcing that he had been awarded the VC. Modestly, in the years after, he said that he had been lucky and that many others did more courageous deeds without recognition. Haslam was awarded the DFC for his part in the action.
West’s award went some way to balancing the loss of two VCs during July. James McCudden need not have returned to the Front, but insisted on leaving his training post in Scotland on 25 June. Promoted major, he was appointed to command No 60 Sqn. Before leaving Hounslow in his SE5a on 9 July 1918, he asked a friend to ‘look in on the mater and my sisters. You know a fellow can’t say all he feels, and I always want to cry inwardly when I leave them.’ That morning he said goodbye to his widowed elder sister Mary (Cis), leaving his decorations with her. He had recently completed a memoir of his service, which would be published posthumously. En route to his new squadron, he put down at Auxi-le-Chateau to check his position in hazy conditions. Scarcely had he taken off again, when the engine cut out. Apparently trying to return to the airfield, he crashed into nearby trees. His brother William had died strapped into his machine, James was thrown clear without being secured. Fatally injured, he died three hours later.
Not knowing exactly how his brother had died, on 31 July Maurice McCudden congratulated his younger sister Kitty on her engagement and thanked her for a letter about ‘Jim’s end’. Maurice speculated that
Jim’s internal injuries would be caused by the safety belt round his waist. As the machine hit the ground, the sudden impact of hitting could tend to throw the pilot forward, but the safety belt would prevent this, hence causing internal injuries. If Jim had not been strapped in, he would have been thrown forward on the front of the seat and his head and face would have been an awful sight.
When writing, Maurice evidently did not know that his brother had perished because he had not been strapped in.
On 11 July, a letter reached James McCudden’s father from Mrs E. Alec-Tweddie, who had encouraged McCudden to compile the memoir of his Service life for publication:
I can’t tell you how sorry I feel for you. No doubt you know I have seen a great deal of your son lately, and I have learnt to appreciate his honesty and charm … Please tell your wife how very, very deeply I sympathise with her as a mother in this her third loss. I lost a dear boy myself near Loos so know what it all means. It is a cruel blow for you both, and a cruel loss to the nation.
A piece appeared in the Evening News from Miss Elsie W. Copping, when McCudden’s book Five Years in the Royal Flying Corps was serialised in the paper. She referred to ‘poor little Jimmy McCudden – I must call him “little Jimmy”. I can’t seem to realise that he ever grew up’. Miss Copping had taught him at ‘a small prep school in Gillingham, when he was about six years of age, and can only think of him as a chubby little blue-eyed, fair-haired fellow with an abundance of mischief and a great admiration for his big “bruvver”.’ She added a tribute, the first verse of which ran: ‘He is not dead/Such spirits never die/They are unquenchable/He only sleeps.’ James McCudden’s death affected a circle of friends and acquaintances far beyond the immediate family.
On 22 July 1918, Maj Edward Mannock, a former pupil of James McCudden at Joyce Green in Kent and OC of 85 Sqn, was officially credited with bringing down his fiftieth enemy machine. Four days later, he may have claimed another before falling victim to ground fire as he re-crossed the front line (one later estimate put his total successes at seventy-three). His father would subsequently attend Buckingham Palace to accept from the King not only the VC, awarded to Mannock posthumously, but the DSO and two Bars, MC and Bar, which his late son had gained but not formally received. Writing to his sister a month before he died, Mannock showed signs of the strain admitted by others: ‘Things are getting a bit intense just lately and I don’t know how long my nerves will last out. I am rather old [32] now, as airmen go, for fighting. Still one hopes for the best.’ Mannock would never enjoy the relaxation of a forthcoming leave to which he referred in this letter.
In the days after Mannock’s death, British troops with French forces on their right continued to probe forward east of Amiens, as the Germans carried out a series of tactical withdrawals. Further north, on 19 August British, Belgian and American troops counter-attacked around Ypres aiming to recapture the ground lost in April. Lt Frank Marsh flying a No 149 Sqn FE2b was part of the RAF support operations. It had taken him almost four years to get to the Front. At the outbreak of war, he went to a recruiting office to be told that he must wait until his seventeenth birthday. When that arrived, he was told to come back after his eighteenth birthday. Early in 1915, walking down the Strand in London, he saw one of the famous Kitchener posters. As he stood looking at it, a recruiting sergeant approached and on learning that Marsh was under age, said: ‘Don’t worry about that, I’ll get you in’; and he did. Rapidly promoted sergeant, then commissioned into The Hertfordshire Regiment, Marsh was hugely disappointed at not being sent to France. He responded to a request in battalion orders early in 1918 for volunteers to join the RFC. Having passed a medical and completed a month’s training at Reading, Marsh went to a training squadron at Marham and duly passed out as a pilot.
However, he must now prove himself proficient at night flying. During one exercise, he was assured that four designated emergency landing grounds would have ‘the landing path … shown up by hurricane lamps, at each side of which a petrol flare could be ignited if needed’. When the engine of Marsh’s machine began to overheat, he decided to make use of one of these facilities and did a dummy run overhead to alert those below to light the landing equipment. There was no reaction, so he landed in the dark; ‘rather hazardous’, he ruefully noted. As he came to a halt, ‘two very elderly men’ emerged from the gloom, and Marsh asked them for water. They had petrol and oil, but no idea that aero-engines were water-cooled. Eventually, the necessary liquid was procured, the flares lit and Marsh took off again.
After further night flying instruction, he was posted to No 149 Sqn formed on 3 March 1918 at Yapton, near Bognor. The OC, Maj B.P. Greenwood, insisted on his pilots having ‘at least 100hrs’ in their logs before going overseas, which the Squadron did on 2 June. The machines were flown ove
r the Channel to Marquise and on to Quillen, where the ground crew and transport, which had travelled by sea from Southampton, joined them on 4 June. Twelve days later, the squadron moved to Alquines, near St Omer, from which it raided ‘generally railway sidings and dumps of stores and later when the enemy was in retreat, bridges over rivers’. However, ‘very poor weather with most nights with big mists [often] made flying impossible’. The crews had to stand by after dinner in case improvement occurred. If not, it was ‘well after midnight that we were allowed to dismiss’. The main target was the railway junction at Lille, where the searchlights ‘increased considerably which showed how much the enemy was concerned at our success’.
Marsh counted himself lucky that his observer, Lt R.D. Linford, had previously served in the infantry in this part of the Front and knew the terrain well. Linford had also been detached for a time to the RNAS for submarine spotting and after fifty hours on this ‘hazardous job’ was recommended for a decoration. He could not be given a naval medal and the Army refused to reward his work with another Service, so Linford was awarded the MBE. This, he declared, was given to civilians at home engaged in war production. He sent the medal back with a note: ‘Give it to some profiteer’. Not guaranteed to enhance his promotion prospects.
After Marsh had dropped his bombs on a target, Linford would often doze, which once nearly proved fatal. ‘On our third show’, Marsh also nodded off and when he came to the FE2b was flying north and just crossing the North Sea coast. Marsh rapidly turned south and found the aerodrome with his observer still asleep. There was another hazard apart from a dozing observer: crossing the line in darkness, Allied anti-aircraft guns frequently opened up. Marsh explained that each night, the bombers were given a different code letter to flash from a small light under the machine: ‘But the gunners took no notice, and the light merely helped them to get their range. The result was that we did not use this indication.’
Cavalry of the Clouds Page 26