‘Wait, what’s going on …!’ shouted Henderson, as bullets began ripping at his plane from below. He broke off from firing and directed his goggled eyes down at the ground.
Some French anti-aircraft gunners had spotted the planes overhead and opened fire.
The French gunners were Henderson’s allies and were obviously aiming at the aircraft bearing the Iron Cross. But as rotten luck would have it they hit the very thing they wanted to avoid – Henderson’s plane.
The Germans flew away while a frustrated Henderson limped back to the aerodrome with a hole in his tail the size of a football. Not all the crews had been as fortunate.
Later that day, the Germans dropped a note on the aerodrome. It was about some missing men from Henderson’s squadron.
The note said they had landed behind German lines with engine trouble. They had been taken prisoner but were all right. This was the civilised, gentlemanly side of war, thought Henderson. Unlike some of his ongoing training with the Royal Flying Corps.
The RFC had devised fiendish and sometimes bizarre ways of toughening men up. After dinner one evening Henderson was strapped to a chair and blindfolded for an ‘Archying’. This exercise was meant to improve a pilot’s capacity to cope with being hit by shrapnel from an anti-aircraft gun, or ‘Archy’.
Tangerines and other pieces of fruit – the ‘shrapnel’ – were hurled at Henderson’s face and body for an extended period of time. Throughout it all he was expected to keep a stiff upper lip. This he did, and then went to bed.
Henderson ended up spending a lot more time in bed that spring. A nasty infection got into his lungs and he was struck down with pleurisy. Out of action for weeks, he couldn’t wait to get back up in the air.
Luckily he recovered enough to take part in a major confrontation which began that summer between the Allies and the Germans on the ground. It became known as the Battle of the Somme and was a turning point in the First World War.
Henderson escorted a group of five bombers over the German lines. While the other aircraft were dropping their bombs, he found himself under attack by an enemy plane. There was quite a tussle, but eventually he shook the marauder off. When he flew off to rejoin his own group, they had completely disappeared.
Henderson could see a big storm coming in from the direction of the British lines on a strong west wind. He would have to fly through the storm to get home.
On the way he met German planes coming in the opposite direction, a group of ten or so, and he had a brief dogfight with one or two of them. But they scuttled home before the advancing tempest. Henderson wasn’t so fortunate.
He was still just inside the German lines when he flew into the thundering cloud. It was pitch black and he couldn’t see a thing. He dropped down several hundred feet to try to get under the cloud but flew into a terrific hail shower.
When he tried to stick his head out of the cockpit for a better look, the hailstones cut his skin to pieces. In the end he managed to cross the British lines and land safely. But there was no sign of the five bombers he had been escorting. They must have lost their way in the storm, a sobering reminder of the dangerous conditions in which they were all operating.
But Henderson was determined to carry on. Soon he set off on another bombing raid, this time as the lead bomber, with a big flag on his tail. Their target was about fifteen miles beyond the German lines. They dropped their bombs as planned and everything went beautifully until they were halfway back.
Looking over his shoulder, Henderson saw that one of his group was surrounded by German aircraft, who were all firing at the poor fellow. He was trapped, just circling round and round helplessly – it transpired later that the pilot’s gun had jammed. Seeing his comrade in serious trouble, Henderson banked his own aircraft into a sharp turn and went back to give him a bit of help.
He flew towards the attackers. They were all so busy terrorising the isolated British plane that they didn’t notice him approaching. He gained height steadily until he was directly above one of them. Then he launched into a terrific dive, firing ferociously.
Down he went, closer and closer. He came so close that he could see the German observer trying to lock his machine gun onto him. But Henderson kept on firing until suddenly the observer slumped lifeless over the side of his machine, his arms dangling.
The pilot must have been hit too, because the plane suddenly dived absolutely vertically. One of Henderson’s comrades later said he saw him go into a spinning nosedive, but Henderson didn’t stick around to watch.
By now all the other German aircraft were above him and he was afraid they would turn nasty. Luckily they seemed to be so rattled by what had just happened that they flew off, leaving Henderson and the other planes to return home and land safely.
Returning home in one piece was something that could never be taken for granted. Henderson was reminded of this when his squadron was paid a visit by a battalion of Argylls. It was good to see one or two faces he recognised from his old regiment. But there were many men missing. They had had a bad time of it in the trenches of late, with fourteen officers lost.
The RFC had suffered heavy losses, too. When Henderson’s group had come out to the Somme just five weeks earlier, there were twenty pilots. Now only six out of that original twenty were left. The rest were either wounded, missing or dead.
These missions were the most dangerous so far. Most of their days were spent flying twenty or thirty miles behind German lines. They bombed the enemy’s aerodromes, ammunition dumps, railways, troops – everything that might possibly undermine the enemy’s military operation. Then they had to try to get home alive.
Airmen needed to look out for each other if they were going to survive. This fact was brought home to Henderson while on a bombing raid led by Captain Williams, a fellow pilot.
Williams had attached long streamers to his plane to mark him out as the leader. The only trouble with such flags and streamers was that they made an aircraft a lot more visible to the enemy too.
A German spotted Williams early on and went straight in for the kill. Henderson was flying above Williams at a height of more than 3,000 metres and could see the dogfight taking place right down in front of him.
Williams seemed to have been wounded by the first shot or so because his plane went down at once, more or less out of control. The German raced after him.
Watching both planes turn in circles as they descended, Henderson flew after the German, firing when he could, although he was afraid of hitting Williams, who was underneath.
Williams flew into a cloud at just over 1,200 metres, followed by his pursuer with guns blazing, who in turn was being followed and fired at by Henderson.
In the cloud Henderson lost them both. He emerged at 1,000 metres and couldn’t see either Williams or the German aircraft anywhere. Then he spotted five more Huns underneath him. Deciding to attack before he was attacked, he dived on the last one, who dived to avoid him and then flew away.
Henderson was now down to 600 metres, flying above the German trenches. At that level his plane would soon be vulnerable to fire from the ground, so he pulled away as sharply as he could over his own side’s trenches to the aerodrome and landed.
Williams’s plane had made it home but was smashed and snapped and covered with holes. When Henderson peered inside, he could see the seat and rudder pedals were soaked in blood.
When he found Williams, he was alive and being bandaged up.
‘I managed to regain control while in the cloud and shook off the Hun,’ said Williams with an exhausted smile. ‘You saved my life, Ian,’ he continued. ‘If you hadn’t gone after him, he would have done for me.’
‘It was nothing,’ said Henderson, feeling a little embarrassed. ‘You would have done the same for me.’
There then came a turning point in the whole campaign.
After lunch on 14 September, the squadron was addressed by a colleague of Henderson’s father, General Trenchard, Chief of the Air Staff. He told them that the Briti
sh were going to try to strike a decisive blow against the Germans, to help bring the war to an end once and for all, and to do so they were going to unleash a mighty new weapon.
That night British bombers from every aerodrome in the Somme area were sent out with orders to hit anything and everything belonging to the enemy. The aim was to leave the Germans broken and in shock. Then, early the next morning, a big ground assault began.
Henderson was sent up on ‘contact patrol’. This meant flying low over the German lines in a single-seat BE12 machine to find out how far the British advance was getting.
Henderson found the view fascinating. He could see British soldiers running forward and jumping into the German trenches, then running after the retreating enemy.
His aircraft got shot up by Archies and machine-gunners, and he was nearly hit by his own side’s shells. But all that training with fruit paid off and he hung on grimly until the job was done.
By the time he got back his face was black with engine oil, but he was bursting with excitement at being able to report on the ground troops’ advance.
Later that day he went up again, and it was then that he saw the new weapon General Trenchard had told them about. It was the most wonderful invention he had ever seen – the tank!
These huge, diamond-shaped metal beasts were heavily armoured, with toothed caterpillar tracks on their wheels and cannons protruding from either side. They knocked down trees left and right as they went, and smashed through enemy trenches.
He was so busy observing the tanks forcing their way behind enemy lines that Henderson and his plane took a battering from the Archies. Wires and struts were shot at and his engine was hit again, but he was determined not to return to base until he’d seen one of the tanks, swiftly followed by a column of British soldiers, capture a village. They cheered and waved at Henderson as he flew over.
It was quite amazing to see how an armoured tank was able to lead and shield an advance by a group of soldiers against the enemy artillery. Perhaps the stalemate of both sides being stuck in trenches and endlessly hammered by each other’s shells could now be broken. And if the British side had the tanks, then it made victory over the Germans a bit more likely.
But the enemy was very far from being beaten. Henderson was reminded of this while flying over a village – or what had once been a village, it was now in ruins – when terrific machine-gun fire opened on him. His aircraft was hammered so badly the engine nearly stopped. He struggled back to the nearest friendly aerodrome and telephoned in his report.
Henderson flew close to disaster so many times that he felt he must have at least nine lives. Perhaps Angela’s Black Cat is looking out for me, he thought.
Many pilots were not so lucky. Henderson was leading a patrol over enemy lines when they were attacked by two big German planes. They went for Henderson at first, but he shot at them fiercely and they turned their firepower on the two aircraft behind him instead.
Before Henderson had time to turn around and help he saw one of his own patrol catch fire and go down blazing. The pilot in the other RFC plane must have been shot dead because he went down too, in a spin, and fell to pieces.
It was a sickening sight. Henderson felt sure his turn would be next, but he must somehow have frightened the Germans. They didn’t attack him again and instead flew off.
As winter approached some of the squadron were given new aeroplanes. Henderson was among the lucky ones. The new aircraft was a SPAD, and Henderson thought it was the most wonderful machine imaginable. Fast, strong and agile, it could even be driven at 130mph along the ground.
Henderson was then moved to the elite 56 Squadron, which spent a lot of time based back across the English Channel defending Britain against enemy air raids. Under cover of darkness the German airforce had begun dropping bombs on cities such as Edinburgh and London using Zeppelins – airships whose crew could roam about in large, comfortable cabins slung underneath gigantic cigar-shaped balloons filled with hydrogen and driven by propellers.
As the war went on, the airmen of 56 Squadron faced a foe that was even faster, stronger and more versatile than the Zeppelins. This was the Grosskampfflugzeug – or Gotha – a large and elegant twin-engined bomber aeroplane with a three-man crew, sent in formations of twenty or more to attack British cities during the day.
The Gothas carried up to half a ton – 500kg – of bombs in their fuselage and, propelled by two 260-horsepower Mercedes engines on their wings, could easily fly at a height of more than 3,300 metres. The Gothas brought terror, death and destruction to the home front, while the RFC squadrons did their best to limit the damage.
Henderson’s father was in charge of defending the homeland from such attacks, and he was heavily criticised for not doing enough. But it was an impossible situation.
There were not enough men and aircraft to prevent all the Gothas and Zeppelins getting through – plus Britain’s air defences were too disorganised. Henderson’s father began arguing for the creation of a new and improved Royal Air Force. Meanwhile, in their letters and occasional meetings, Henderson comforted his father as best he could.
There was still a war to be won on mainland Europe, however, and while he participated in home defence Henderson was never very far from the thick of the action in the skies over France, constantly pushing himself and his aircraft to the limit. His most successful month was July 1917 – but it could easily have been his last.
He was credited with shooting down four Albatross DVs that month. It took his confirmed tally up to seven – but there was evidence he had actually shot down more enemy planes than that. Henderson felt excited and optimistic. They were really going at the Huns now.
But there were still emergencies to overcome, including the mission during which Henderson’s propeller came off in mid-air. The controls jammed and he went into a dive. He managed to crash-land but the machine was wrecked. Somehow he walked away with barely a scratch. The lucky Black Cat was still watching over him and he made sure that he salvaged it from the wreckage.
Henderson held his own in a squadron that was filled with the best of the best – Arthur Rhys-Davids, James McCudden, Albert Ball, Cecil Lewis, to give a few famous names. The friendship between the men was wonderful. Despite the dangers they faced every time they took to the skies, they joked, they sang, there was poetry – and some great concerts, too.
When Henderson was granted leave of absence or posted on home defence, he would join the ‘chaps’ for some sport or other, or take someone out for a spin on his motorcycle. And then there were the girls, of course.
A dance was organised when the squadron was back in ‘Blighty’ – a favourite nickname for Britain – for home defence. They were based at Bekesbourne Aerodrome near Canterbury, halfway between London and the English Channel.
The weather was cloudless and perfect for bombing, but there was no sign of any Zeppelins or Gothas so the men kept busy with their dance preparations. They went to Canterbury to round up some eager young ladies and brought them back to the aerodrome, where they had put up a marquee with a dancefloor made from some planking a senior officer had scrounged from somewhere.
On the night of the dance the marquee looked wonderful. The tables were beautifully laid with fine china and silver, which twinkled in the candle light. The open ends of the tent flapped in the gentle breeze of the fine summer’s night.
Henderson and the others popped champagne corks while the girls, dressed in their evening gowns, were invited to stand in the long grass on the edge of the aerodrome. Henderson and his friend Cecil Lewis then jumped in a couple of aircraft and gave an exhibition of stunt flying.
‘That was wonderful, Captain Henderson,’ said a pretty young lady after Henderson and Lewis had rejoined the crowd.
‘Oh, it was nothing,’ Henderson replied, smiling bashfully.
They all ate a beautiful dinner prepared by the squadron cooks and afterwards Henderson led the singing while someone played the fiddle. The evening was ful
l of laughter, talking and dancing.
These were happy times, despite the worries of war. On another happy occasion a photograph was taken showing Henderson, grinning like the Cheshire cat, looking dapper in a blazer with his black hair slicked back and two pretty young ladies standing next to him.
Perhaps one of these girls might have hoped that the dashing young pilot would one day become her husband. Who would this hero of the skies choose as a wife with whom to start a family? He could have taken his pick.
But Henderson’s story was to have a rather different ending.
In the spring of 1918 he was sent to Scotland, to the training school at Turnberry on the Ayrshire coast. He wrote to tell his father, who was pleased to know he would be in a part of the country that was home to many of the family’s relatives and ancestors.
The training school was an opportunity to test different machines and weapons, and to learn new techniques before rejoining the fray. It was a busy but relaxing period for Henderson. When he had some time off, he loved to ride his motorcycle, and he and the others sometimes took an old motorboat out along the coast.
His father wrote to tell him that he had resigned from his top job in the air force, as he felt he had done as much as he could do and wanted to try something different. ‘I would like to come up to see you, my lad,’ he wrote, ‘but it is rather a long journey.’
Henderson wrote back to comfort his father, for he knew running and reorganising the air force had been an exhausting job. He described his training at Turnberry, and the exciting new aircraft and weapons he was testing. ‘I’m looking forward to telling you more about it when I get leave to visit home,’ he added.
Then his letters suddenly stopped.
Instead, on the afternoon of 21 June 1918, Sir David received a telegram:
*** DEEPLY REGRET [TO] INFORM YOU CAPTAIN IAN HENRY DAVID HENDERSON KILLED NEAR HERE IN AEROPLANE ACCIDENT THIS FORENOON. *** CAUSE OF ACCIDENT UNKNOWN. *** CAPTAIN HENDERSON WAS TESTING GUN AS PASSENGER. *** PLEASE WIRE WISHES RE: FUNERAL WHETHER BODY TO BE SENT HOME OR BURIAL ARRANGED HERE. *** ACCIDENTS COMMITTEE ASKED TO INVESTIGATE. ***
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