The Mammoth Book of Fighter Pilots

by Jon E. Lewis

  We were acting, you might say, as air policemen. Occasionally one of our machines would be set upon by the German gangsters – they were “careful” fighters and seldom attacked unless at odds of four to one – and naturally we suffered some casualties, just as the ordinary police force suffers casualties when it is doing patrol duty in an outlaw country. The weather was always favourable to the German methods of avoiding “open-air” combats. Even the clearer days were marked by skies filled with clouds sufficiently large and dense enough to offer protection and hiding-places to the high winging Hun machines.

  I had several skirmishes, but did not succeed in bringing down another machine until April 20th, when I was fortunate enough to begin another series of extremely interesting and successful fights. I was promoted to be a Captain about this time and thought I was very happy; but the promotion was followed by another incident which really made me proud. The sergeants of my squadron had made me a round “nose” for my machine. It fitted on the propeller head and revolved with it. I had it painted a brilliant blue, and from that time on my machine was known as “Blue Nose.” It was given to me, the Sergeant-Major explained, as a sign that I was an “Ace” – that I had brought down more than five machines. I was so pleased with this tribute from the men that I took old “Blue Nose” visiting to several other squadrons, where I exhibited my new mark of distinction to many of my friends and flying companions.

  The machine I got on April 20th was the first I ever destroyed in flames. It is a thing that often happens, and while I have no desire to make myself appear as a blood-thirsty person, I must say that to see an enemy going down in flames is a source of great satisfaction. You know his destruction is absolutely certain. The moment you see the fire break out you know that nothing in the world can save the man, or men, in the doomed aeroplane. You know there is no “camouflage” in this, and you have no fear that the enemy is trying any kind of flying trick in the hope that he will be left alone.

  I was flying over a layer of white clouds when I saw a two-seater just above me. We generally met the enemy in force during these days, but this German machine was all alone. Neither the pilot nor observer saw me. They flew along blissfully ignorant of my existence, while I carefully kept directly underneath them, climbing all the time. I was only ten yards behind the Hun when I fired directly up at him. It had been an exciting game getting into position underneath him, carefully following every move he made, waiting, hoping, and praying that he would not see me before I got into the place I wanted. I was afraid that if he did see me I would be at a distinct disadvantage below him. My hand must have been shaky, or my eye slightly out, because, although I managed to fire ten rounds, I did not hit anything vital. Even in this crucial moment the humour of the situation almost got the better of me. My machine seemed so little, carefully flying there under the big, peaceful Hun; who thought he was so safe and so far from any danger. Suddenly, from just underneath him, he heard the “tat-tat-tat-tatter-tatter” of my machine gun almost in his ear, the range was so close. Then he must have seen my smoking bullets passing all around him. Anyway, there was consternation in the camp. He turned quickly, and a regular battle in the air began between the two of us. We manœuvred every way possible, diving, rolling, stalling; he attempting to get a straight shot at me, while my one object was to get straight behind him again, or directly in front of him, so as to have a direct line of fire right into him.

  Twice I dived at him and opened fire from almost point-blank range, being within two lengths of him before I touched the lever which set my gun to spouting. But there was no success. The third time I tried a new manœuvre. I dived at him from the side, firing as I came. My new tactics gave the German observer a direct shot at me from his swivel gun, and he was firing very well too, his bullets passing quite close for a moment or two. Then, however, they began to fly well beyond my wing-tips, and on seeing this I knew that his nerve was shaken. I could now see my own bullets hitting the right part of the Hun machine, and felt confident the battle soon would be over.

  I pulled my machine out of its dive just in time to pass about 5 feet over the enemy. I could see the observer evidently had been hit and had stopped firing. Otherwise the Hun machine seemed perfectly all right. But just after I passed I looked back over my shoulder and saw it burst into flames. A second later it fell a burning mass, leaving a long trail of smoke behind as it disappeared through the clouds. I thought for a moment of the fate of the wounded observer and the hooded pilot into whose faces I had just been looking – but it was fair hunting, and I flew away with great contentment in my heart.

  This fight seemed to have changed my luck for the better. Everywhere I went for the next few weeks enemy machines were easily found, and I had numerous combats, many of them successful. Some days I could have been accused of violating all the rules of a flying men’s union (if we had had one). I would fly as much as seven and a half hours between sunrise and sunset. Far from affecting my nerves, the more I flew the more I wanted to fly, the better I seemed to feel, and each combat became more and more enjoyable. Ambition was born in my breast, and, although I still dared not entertain hope of equalling the record of the renowned Captain Ball,6 who by this time had shot down over thirty-five machines, I did have vague hopes of running second to him.

  Along with the new ambition there was born in me as well a distinct dislike for all two-seated German flying machines! They always seemed so placid and sort of contented with themselves. I picked a fight with the two-seaters wherever I could find one, and I searched for them high and low. Many people think of the two-seater as a superior fighting machine because of its greater gun-power. But to me they always seemed fair prey and an easy target. One afternoon, soon after this new Hun hatred had become a part of my soul, I met a two-seater about three miles over the German lines and dived at him from a very low height. As bad luck would have it, my gun had a stoppage, and while I turned away to right it, the enemy escaped. Much disgusted, I headed away homeward, when into my delighted vision there came the familiar outlines of another Hun with two men aboard. I flew at this new enemy with great determination; but after a short battle he dived away from me, and although I did my best to catch him up, I could not. He landed in a field underneath me. To see him calmly alight there under perfect control filled me with a towering rage. I saw red things before my eyes. I vowed an eternal vendetta against all the Hun two-seaters in the world, and, the impulse suddenly seizing me, I dived right down to within a few feet of the ground, firing a stream of bullets into the machine where it was sitting. I had the satisfaction of knowing that the pilot and observer must have been hit, or nearly scared to death, for, although I hovered about for quite a long time, neither of them stepped from the silent machine.

  Half an hour after this occurrence I saw one of our machines in difficulties with three of the enemy. The Huns were so engrossed with the thought that they had a single British machine at their mercy, I felt there was a good chance that I might slip up and surprise them. My scheme worked beautifully. I came up to within 15 yards of one of the Huns, and, aiming my machine at him with dead accuracy, shot him down with my first ten bullets. He probably never knew where the bullets came from, not having the slightest idea another British machine was anywhere in that part of the sky. I turned now to assist with the other two Huns, but by this time my brother-pilot had sent one of them spinning out of control, while the last remaining enemy was making good his escape as fast as his Mercédès engine could pull him through the air. It is surprising sometimes how much dead resistance there is in the air when you are in a hurry. Having nothing better to do under the circumstances, I dived down after my own victim to get a view of the crash. I was just in time. He struck the ground at the corner of a field, and what was one instant a falling machine was next a twisted bit of wreckage.

  It was apparent to us by this time that the Germans were bringing their best pilots opposite the British front to meet the determined offensive we had been carrying on sin
ce April 1st. Most of the machines we met were handled in a manner far above the German average. Each night our pilots brought in exciting stories of the chase. Although they were a higher class of fighting men than we had hitherto flown against, the Germans still showed a reluctance to attack unless they outnumbered us by at least three to one. One lone German was induced to take a fatal chance against a British scout formation. By clever manœuvring, at which the hostile airman was also quite adept, we managed to entice him to attack one of our machines from behind. As he did so, a second British machine dived at him, and down he went, one of his wings breaking off as he fell.

  I can best illustrate the German tactics of the time by telling the experience of one of our faithful old photographic machines, which, by the way, are not without their desperate moments and their deeds of heroism. All of which goes to show that the fighting scouts should not get all the credit for the wonders of modern warfare in the air. The old “photographer” in question was returning over the lines one day when it was set upon by no less than eleven hostile scouts. Nearly all the controls of the British machine were shot away, and the observer, seriously wounded, fell half-way out of the nacelle. Although still manœuvring his machine so as to escape the direct fire of the enemies on his tail, the British pilot grasped the wounded observer, held him safely in the machine, and made a safe landing in our lines. A moment later the riddled aeroplane burst into flames. Under heavy shell-fire the pilot carried the wounded observer to safety.

  One of the distinguished German flying squadrons opposite us was under command of the famous Captain Baron von Richthofen. One day I had the distinction of engaging in three fights in half an hour with pilots from this squadron. Their machines were painted a brilliant scarlet from nose to tail – immense red birds, they were, with the graceful wings of their type, Albatross scouts. They were all single-seaters, and were flown by pilots of undeniable skill. There was quite a little spirit of sportsmanship in this squadron, too. The red German machines had two machine guns in fixed positions firing straight ahead, both being operated from the same control.

  The first of my three fights with these newcomers in our midst occurred when I suddenly found myself mixed up with two of them. Evidently they were not very anxious for a fight at the moment, for, after a few minutes of manœuvring, both broke it off and dived away. Ten minutes later I encountered one of the red machines flying alone. I challenged him, but he wouldn’t stay at all. On the contrary, he made off as fast as he could go. On my return from chasing him I met a second pair of red Huns. I had picked up company with another British machine, and the two Huns, seeing us, dived into a cloud to escape. I went in after them, and on coming out again found one directly beneath me. On to him I dived, not pulling the trigger until I was 15 yards away. Once, twice, three times I pressed the lever, but not a shot from my gun! I slipped away into another cloud and examined the faithless weapon, only to find that I had run completely out of ammunition. I returned home quite the most disgusted person in the entire British Army.

  During the changeable days of the Arras offensive we had many exciting adventures with the weather. On one occasion I had gone back to the aircraft depot to bring to the front a new machine. Sunshine and snow-squalls were chasing each other in a seemingly endless procession. On the ground the wind was howling along at about fifty miles an hour. I arrived at the depot at 9 o’clock in the morning, but waited about until four in the afternoon before the weather appeared to be settling down to something like a safe and sane basis. The sunshine intervals were growing longer and the snow periods shorter, so I climbed into my machine and started off. It was only a fifteen minutes’ fly to the aerodrome, but in that time a huge black cloud loomed up and came racing toward me. I was headed straight into the gale, and the way was so rough from the rush of the wind and the heavy clouds floating by that the little machine was tossed about like a piece of paper. Several times I thought I was going to be blown completely over. Occasionally, without any warning, I would be lifted a sheer hundred feet in the air. Then later I would be dropped that distance, and often more. I was perspiring freely, although it was a very cold day. It was a race against the weather to reach my destination in time.

  One cannot see in a snowstorm, and I felt that if the fleecy squall struck me before I sighted the aerodrome I would have to land in a ploughed field, and to do this in such a gale would be a very ticklish proposition. Added to all this, I was flying a machine of a type I had never handled before, and naturally it was a bit strange to me. Nearer and nearer the big cloud came. But I was racing for home at top speed. About half a mile from the haven I sought, the storm struck me. The moment before the snow deluge came, however, I had recognized the road that led to the aerodrome, and coming down to 50 feet, where I could just make it out, I flew wildly on, praying all the time that the snow striking my engine would not cause it to stop. Then the awful thought came to me that perhaps I was on the wrong road. Then, even more suddenly than it had come, the snow stopped – the storm had swept right over me. There, just ahead of me, I saw the tents and hangars and the flying pennant of the aerodrome – home. This was my first experience in flying through snow, and I did not care for another.

  A few days after my unsuccessful experience with the red Richthofen scouts, I got my just revenge and a little more back from the Huns. My Major had been told to have some photographs taken of a certain point behind the German lines, and by special permission he was given the privilege of taking them himself. The point to be photographed was about seven miles in German territory, and in order to make a success of the snapshotting it would be necessary to have a strong escort. The Major offered to go out and do the photographs on his own without an escort, but the Colonel would not hear of it, and so it was arranged that an offensive patrol would go out at 9 o’clock in the morning, meet the Major at a given point, and escort him over the ground he wished to cover.

  My patrol was the one working at the time, and I was the leader. At 9.30 we were to meet, just east of Arras, at 6000 feet. The rendezvous came off like clockwork. I brought the patrol to the spot at 9.28, and two minutes later we spied a single Nieuport coming toward us. I fired a red signal light and the Nieuport answered. It was the Major. I then climbed slightly and led the patrol along about 1000 feet above the Nieuport in order to protect the Major and at the same time keep high enough to avoid too much danger from anti-aircraft fire. We got to the area to be photographed without any other excitement than a very heavy greeting from the “Archies.” There were a number of big white clouds floating around about 6000 feet, and these made it difficult for the guns to shoot at us. But they also made it difficult for the Major to get his photographs. We went around and around in circles for what seemed an eternity. During one of these sweeping turns I suddenly saw four enemy scouts climbing between two clouds and some distance off. I knew they would see us soon, so it occurred to me it would be a brilliant idea to let the enemy think there was only one British machine on the job. Under these circumstances I knew they would be sure to attack, and then the rest of us could swoop down and surprise them. I had no intention of letting the Major in for any unnecessary risks, but it seemed such a rare chance, I could not resist it.

  I led the patrol about 2000 feet higher up and there we waited. The enemy scouts did not see us at all, but they did see the Major. And they made for him. The first the Major knew of their approach, however, was when they were about 200 yards away, and one of them, somewhat prematurely, opened fire. His thoughts – he told me afterward – immediately flew to the patrol, and he glanced over his shoulder to see where we were. But we had vanished. He then wondered how much money he had in his pockets, as he did not doubt that the four Huns, surprising him as they had, would surely get him. Despite these gloomy and somewhat mercenary thoughts, the Major was fighting for his life. First he turned the nose of his machine directly toward the enemy, poured a burst of bullets toward a German at his right; then turned to the left, as the second machine approa
ched in that direction, and let him have a taste of British gunfire as well. This frightened the first two Huns off for a moment, and, in that time, I arrived down on the scene with the rest of the patrol.

  One of the Huns was firing at the Major’s machine as I flashed by him, and I fired at a bare ten yards’ range. Then I passed on to the second enemy machine, firing all the while, and eventually passing within 5 feet of one of his wing-tips. Turning my machine as quickly as I could, I was yet too late to catch the other two of the formation of four. They had both dived away and escaped. I had hit the two that first attacked the Major, however, and they were at the moment falling completely out of control 1000 or more feet below me, and finally went through the clouds, floundering helplessly in the air.

  This little interruption ended, we all reassembled in our former positions and went on with the photographing. This was finished in about fifteen minutes, and, under a very heavy anti-aircraft fire, we returned home. The episode of the four Huns was perhaps the most successful bit of trapping I have ever seen, but it was many weeks before the squadron got through teasing me for using our commander as a decoy. I apologized to the Major, who agreed with me that the chance was too good a one to miss.

  “Don’t mind me,” he said; “carry on.”