Realising that the machine was out of control owing to the loss of lift in the tail plane, half of this being shot away, he [Dodwell] left his cockpit, and, climbing onto the wing, lay down along the cowling in front of the pilot, enabling the latter to obtain partial control of the machine and head for home. When nearing the ground, he climbed back into his cockpit to allow the nose to rise, and the pilot succeeded in safely landing.
Bonnalie believed that Dodwell’s ‘presence of mind and cool courage … undoubtedly saved the machine and deserve the highest praise’. Both pilot and observer survived unscathed, but there were over 250 holes in the fuselage. Thomas Dodwell discovered ‘eight in my cockpit’, and reflected ‘we were very lucky getting out of a tight place’.
Two days later, he wrote, ‘very hot Archie owing to clear visibility. Hit in six places, one piece went through the back of my skipper’s seat. A lot of Huns knocking about were engaged by the Camel escorts, who shot three down’. On 16 August, Dodwell’s luck ran out. ‘Hit in three places by Archie … Attacked by Hun scout. Engine stopped and bottom wing shot in two close to fuselage. Managed to dodge the Hun and landed in sea 2½ miles from coast’. An hour afterwards, Dodwell and the pilot Capt C.S. Wynne-Eyton were picked up by a neutral Dutch vessel. Dodwell’s left arm had been badly injured close to the shoulder and that afternoon was amputated. Between 21 April and 16 August 1918, excluding a short leave in England, he had flown fifty-eight operations.
Almost two months later, on 17 October, Dodwell returned to England ‘in an old tramp steamer’, shortly afterwards being invested with the DSO for which he had been recommended by Lt Bonnalie due to his ‘extraordinary heroism’ on 13 August, and he received a separate Mention in Despatches for his work during other operations.
While the advance into Flanders progressed in September 1918, further south three British armies supported by 1,058 aeroplanes were committed to assaulting the Hindenburg Line. A thrust towards Cambrai on 27 September was followed, after two days of preliminary bombardment, at 5.50am on 29 September by the main attack towards Bellenglise-Vendhuille, near St Quentin. As close-support squadrons saturated the battlefield, bombers hit more distant targets. By 4 October, the line had been breached and British troops were through to open country.
Aeroplane losses in Flanders and in the Bapaume area showed, however, that the German air force was by no means spent. The highly-manoeuvrable Fokker D.VIII single-seat fighter (nicknamed ‘Flying Razor Blade’ by the British), with two Spandau machine-guns, maximum speed of 202 kph (126mph) and ceiling of 21,000ft, proved a formidable acquisition. Fortunately for the Allies, it did not come into service until August 1918 and initially suffered teething problems from which the American Elliott Springs may have unknowingly benefited on 2 September, when he criticised its defective gunnery.
In mid-September, as Allied troops in the area advanced, No 12 Sqn moved forward to Vrau Vraucourt, 5 miles north-east of Bapaume, where Croye Pithey and Hervey Rhodes continued to carry out contact patrols, photo reconnaissance and artillery spotting tasks. On 26 September, Rhodes received his ‘ticket’ to train as a pilot on Sopwith Snipes in England. Superstition decreed that once a ‘ticket’ had arrived the individual concerned should not fly again. Next day, however, was the big attack on the Hindenburg Line, as Rhodes put it, ‘the beginning of the end’. Arguing that on such ‘an important show’ Pithey would not want a strange observer in the rear cockpit, Rhodes persuaded his flight commander, Capt Castles, much against his own judgement (‘you’re a bloody fool’, he told Rhodes) to let him fly. Rhodes would later admit to being ‘Headstrong and young and impetuous’.
That evening, he saw soldiers resting on the edge of the airstrip on their way to the front for the dawn assault. He and other members of the mess dragged the squadron water carrier across the grass and offered refreshment. Rhodes was astonished to find a friend from his own street with whom he had grown up. He walked some way with him before turning back, wondering whether as Castles had said he was being foolish. Waking at around midnight, he decided that he had been silly, put on his leather jacket and sought out Castles. Far from being annoyed, the flight commander commended him for seeing sense and agreed that he should not fly. It was soon Rhodes’ turn to be shaken, however, when about three hours later Castles woke him, ‘I’ve got bad news’, he said. No 12 Sqn provided support for VI Infantry Corps, which would take part in the forthcoming attack. Over the previous months, the crews had become well-known to the soldiers and Castles told Rhodes that the corps commander had asked for Pithey and Rhodes to be on duty that morning.
They duly flew their dawn patrol, had breakfast and then went back to the hangar. Another machine landed, its pilot wounded before completing his reconnaissance, and not waiting for orders, Pithey and Rhodes went up to finish the task. Flying over the Canal du Nord, they saw German field guns being towed away, and immediately the RE8 dived to scatter men and horses with repeated machine-gun bursts from 100ft before turning for home. Crossing the Bapaume–Cambrai road, Rhodes saw a puff of blue smoke rising from a crossroads shortly before shells struck the machine. Pithey suffered an arm wound, Rhodes was severely hit in the legs and buttock. With his observer rapidly losing blood, Pithey managed to land back at base, where willing hands gently extracted the unconscious Rhodes from his shattered cockpit. Before he passed out in the air, Rhodes dimly heard a mechanic calling, ‘your aerial’s hanging out, sir’, and thinking, ‘my life’s hanging out let alone the aerial’. Rhodes came round in a Casualty Clearing Station and would remain in hospital for two and a half years. Unlike many less fortunate families, though, he and his two brothers survived the war.
During October 1918, as their armies attempted to rally, German squadrons concentrated on preventing British day bombers from attacking the railway network. Their particular concern was to protect the bottleneck through Namur and Liège necessary for the safe withdrawal of enemy troops from Belgium and northern France. To achieve their aim, the Germans amassed large formations, sometimes totalling fifty machines, with which to attack the bombers and their fighter escorts. On 30 October, an enormous aerial scrum ended with claims of sixty-seven enemy aeroplanes shot down, forty-one RAF machines either lost or written off with twenty-nine airmen killed or missing and eight wounded.
The RAF gained two more VCs during October. South African Capt Andrew Beauchamp-Proctor, who would also secure a Bar to his MC and a DSO before the Armistice, flying a No 84 Sqn SE5a was awarded the VC for his achievements over a two-month period. Between 8 August and 8 October 1918, he shot down ten aeroplanes, drove down four more out of control and accounted for twelve observation balloons. On 8 October, after destroying a two-seater near Maretz, Beauchamp-Proctor was wounded in the arm by machine-gun fire as he flew low but contrived to land safely at base and to make his report before being taken to hospital.
Maj William ‘Billy’ George Barker, already the holder of the MC and two bars, DSO and Bar, French Croix de Guerre and Italian Silver Medal while on the Italian Front, brought Canada its third VC in the air. Born in Manitoba, Barker had served in the trenches with the Canadian Mounted Rifles before becoming attached to the RFC as an observer then qualifying as a pilot. During the morning of 27 October 1918, flying a No 201 Sqn Sopwith Snipe he shot down an enemy two-seater over the Forêt de Mormal, but was then himself attacked by a Fokker biplane. Despite being wounded in the right thigh, he managed to shoot down this machine as well. However, Barker was soon surrounded by several more enemy machines, was hit in the left thigh, yet drove down two of his opponents out of control before briefly losing consciousness. On coming round, his aeroplane was still under attack, but he accounted for a third enemy, suffered a shattered left elbow and fainted once more. Regaining consciousness yet again, in spite of his injuries, he despatched a fourth German attacker.
Now thoroughly exhausted, Barker broke away and made for base, only to be confronted by further enemy machines, which he evaded to crash over the British line.
His tally of four aerial victims, which brought his overall total to fifty, was according to the citation, ‘a notable example of the exceptional bravery and disregard of danger, which this very gallant officer has always displayed throughout his distinguished career’. Barker was one of fifteen VCs awarded to members of the British air services in North West Europe.
As Allied divisions on the ground, covered by their air components, advanced in Autumn 1918, the Independent Force continued to execute its own operational programme. From 22 September, with the arrival of another Sopwith Camel squadron, its strength had risen to ten squadrons. Availability of the 1,650lb bomb greatly increased the force’s destructive capacity, and one of these weapons reputedly wiped out a whole factory at Kaiserslautern. Specifications were drawn up for a long-range bomber, powered by four 375hp engines in tandem, with a top speed of 90mph and crew of between five and seven. Depending on the bomb-load and number of machine-guns carried, there would be provision for up to five machine-guns and a maximum bomb-load of 7,500lbs. First flown in May 1918, the Handley Page (HP) v 1500 had the ability to reach Berlin and three of the machines were standing by to do so from Bircham Newton in Norfolk in November 1918.
Lt Anthony Kilburn was one of the pilots ready to bomb the German capital. He had first taken up an HP v 1500 on 29 July 1918 and declared that it ‘flew beautifully’. Kilburn remained involved in the test programme, though not without alarms. On 22 September, he set out from Andover for Shrewsbury carrying ‘a DW directional wireless – new invention for the bombing of Berlin’. Bad weather caused him to land at Malvern. A week later, for some unexplained reason, he flew to Malvern with only one crew member and ‘landed in a large field to pick up the rest of crew’. As Kilburn attempted to get airborne again, the throttle broke, ‘swinging machine into large tree. Crashed, no one hurt’. Then, on 2 and 3 November 1918, he flew from Bircham Newton as second pilot on preparatory flights for ‘the bombing of Berlin’. During the second of these, the bomber was forced to land at Martlesham Heath ‘owing to bad weather’. An unsubstantiated belief has survived that the sandwiches were already cut for crews prepared for the Berlin raid, when it was cancelled after pressure from the Foreign Office. So the HP v 1500 did not fly operationally before the war ended, although Kilburn’s association with it had by no means finished.
While the HP v 1500 crews prepared for their ambitious operation, Independent Force bombers pressed home attacks on targets in Germany, despite raids during September being severely restricted. An official report explained:
On nineteen days and eighteen nights no operations were carried out owing to adverse weather conditions … During the period of the useful phases of the moon, conditions for night flying were particularly bad. Strong winds, low clouds, and much rain prevented many of the long-distance objectives being reached.
A pilot, who through his many later publications would have an immense influence on perceptions of aerial fighting during the First World War, flew with No 55 Sqn of the Independent Force in 1918. William Earl (known to contemporaries as Bill) Johns had joined The King’s Own Royal Regiment (Norfolk Yeomanry) in 1913 and been mobilised at the outbreak of war. In September 1915, Pte Johns found himself embroiled in the Gallipoli disaster, and after the withdrawal from the peninsula, he transferred to The Machine-Gun Corps. Following a spell at home, he sailed for the Salonika enclave, where Allied troops were engaging Austro-Hungarian forces. In fever-ridden Greek Macedonia, his unit suffered more fatalities from sickness than enemy action.
Recovering from malaria back in England, L/Cpl Johns volunteered for the RFC: ‘It seemed to me there was no point in dying standing up in squalor, if one could do so sitting down in clean air’, he explained. So on 26 September 1917, 2/Lt Bill Johns found himself at an Oxford college for a month-long introductory course, and almost precisely a year later, on 15 September 1918, flying one of the twelve DH4s of No 55 Sqn to bomb Stuttgart and survive a determined attack by enemy fighters on the way back. Johns was not impressed with the DH4, which he claimed was ‘an unpopular machine’ and a potential ‘flaming coffin’ because the main petrol tank was positioned between the pilot and observer. He also claimed the constant roar of the aero-engine during a prolonged flight frequently gave crews painful headaches.
The next day, Johns flew one of twelve DH4s ordered to the Lanz works and railway yards at Mannheim. Six machines aborted the operation, but Johns was in the formation which flew on to attack the target. On the way back, near Hagenau, Johns fired a green light indicating engine trouble and fell behind. He failed to return and was duly posted ‘missing in action’.
Unknown to his family, already damaged by anti-aircraft fire, Johns’ bomber had been shot down by an enemy fighter. The observer died, Johns himself was wounded in the crash and destined to spend the remaining weeks of the war in captivity; apparently, not without incident. He twice briefly escaped from different camps and shortly after his capture, was reputedly put on trial and sentenced to death for bombing civilians. Johns weighed 11 stone (69kg), when he became a prisoner, and 7 stone (44kg) on release.
Johns was only one of many airmen to be lost or posted missing in the closing phase of the conflict, causing anguish and dismay among their relatives. Mrs J. Bishop from Worthing, Sussex, learnt that her son had been reported missing in September 1918. She wrote to his squadron commander two months later and wondered whether, as it went unanswered, previous correspondence had ‘gone astray. I should esteem it a great favour if you could possibly send me any further news about our poor lad, as we have heard nothing from the Red Cross or the Air Board.’ A letter from south-west London reached No 56 Sqn following ‘the death of my son Lt J.A. Pouchot … Naturally, I am anxious to know how he came by his end and should esteem it a favour if you would give me all the particulars you can’. From Cottisbrooke, Northants, another distraught letter went to that Squadron. ‘I am writing on behalf of my father to ask if you have any news of my brother, A.Vickers, who has been missing since September 3rd. If you will kindly have all his kit collected and sent home. We were hoping to hear some news of him.’
Such despair was not confined to the United Kingdom, again underlining the diverse origins of RAF crews. In Toronto, a cable had been received revealing that Lt Jas C. Crawford had died of burns received in a crash. His father penned a letter to Crawford’s Flight Commander:
We would be greatly indebted to you, if you would send us full particulars whether accident or shot down and when it happened and where he is buried. Hoping that is not asking too much of you. I am making this as short as possible. I know your time is taken up … from a lonely mother, father and brother.
From Omaha, Nebraska, the grandfather of Lt Jarvis J. Offut, an American officer killed while attached to a British squadron, wrote asking that the effects of ‘our dear boy’ could be forwarded to his mother, whose address was appended. As Victor Yeates, who flew 248 hours in Sopwith Camels, crashed four times and was shot down twice, reflected: ‘It’s rotten for women. It’s worse to stay at home than go and get on with the war.’
Away from this grief, in the penultimate month of the war, agreement was reached to expand the British Independent Force into a powerful international bombing organisation. On 3 October 1918, a Heads of Agreement document was drawn up between the British and French governments and submitted to the Italian and American governments for approval to establish an Inter-Allied Independent Air Force (IAAF) under Maj Gen Sir Hugh Trenchard as C-in-C. For operational purposes, the IAAF would be responsible to the Supreme Allied Commander, Marshal Foch. Its ‘object’ would be ‘to carry war into Germany by attacking her industry, commerce, and population … Air raids must be on a large scale and repeated, forming part of a methodical plan and carried on with tenacity’. On 17 October, the British contribution comprised 10 squadrons totalling 140 machines. It would not, in practice, be swelled by aeroplanes from other nations, and effectively the IAAF remained the Independent Force by another name, whose targets were o
fficially to include urban concentrations as well as industrial and commercial centres.
At dawn on 4 November, along a 30-mile (48km) front from Oisy on the Sambre to Valenciennes, the British First, Third and Fourth armies launched the last major assault of the First World War. RAF squadrons attacked transport concentrations beyond the battlefield and enemy troops on it with bombs and machine-guns as they fell back, even though weather conditions were not always favourable. On 9 November, a large formation of DH9, Camel and SE5a machines carrying bombs were escorted by Bristol Fighters and Sopwith Snipes to Enghien, near Brussels. The raid leader reported that ‘there was great confusion of troops and transport of all descriptions on the roads, trains on the railways and in the station, also two aerodromes with machines on the ground’. Hangars and aeroplanes were wrecked on both aerodromes, and twenty direct hits were observed on the station, where one train was set on fire. Along roads leading to the town, troops and transport were badly disrupted:
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