BEF Campaign on the Aisne 1914

by Jerry Murland

  Artillery observation from the air had been given little thought before war was declared. Both aircraft and ammunition were in short supply and the consensus of military thinking on the subject was still the subject of debate. However, two young Royal Engineers officers who had joined the RFC in 1913 had been giving a good deal of thought to air-to-ground communication between artillery batteries and aircraft. Both Lieutenants Baron James and Donald Lewis were firm advocates of the use of wireless telegraphy in transmitting information from aircraft to the ground and had in June 1914 successfully carried out a test flight during which they had maintained radio communication. James McCudden, who had transferred to the RFC in May 1913, had his first flight with Baron James and recalled the specially fitted aircraft which were being used in the wireless experiments:

  ‘About 5.00pm I saw Lieutenant B T James, RE, going up alone on a silver doped BE2a, fitted with the first wireless experimental set … I asked Mr James if he would take me up. With his usual good nature he said he would, so I had my first flight, about the first week of May 1913.’275

  McCudden was awarded seven days detention and fourteen days loss of pay for his pains but his flight with James was the beginning of his career as a RFC pilot which began in June 1916 after he had successfully received his aero club certificate in the April of that year. Quite how McCudden squeezed into the observer’s cockpit space alongside the wireless equipment is not mentioned!

  On the declaration of war the Experimental Wireless Flight which had hosted the experimental trials involving James and Lewis was absorbed into the strength of the four RFC squadrons, the wireless flight, its three pilots and its cumbersome equipment were attached to 4 Squadron and Lewis, James and Second Lieutenant Stephen Smith went to war on 13 August. Baron James was a mathematical scholar who, after graduating from Woolwich, was commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1909. In June 1912 after only a few days instruction he was awarded his Royal Aero Club Certificate at Hendon and in April 1913 he transferred to the Military Wing of the RFC. He was joined eight months later by Donald Lewis and over the next year the two men developed a professional partnership which pioneered the use of wireless telegraphy culminating in what John Terraine described as, ‘a new co-operation with the artillery which began an intimate relationship between the air and the guns’.276

  Effective indirect artillery fire was dependent on the gunners knowing not only their own position, but the position of the target. Once firing began they would make compensations for variations on wind, temperature, gun barrel wear and the type of shell being fired, thus observation of the fall of each shell became vital. We know that this was initially carried out by observers who reported back to the battery by telephone or other means. Initially artillery officers were taken up by the RFC in order for them to plot the positions of German batteries on the map and divisional CRAs would then allocate targets to their batteries. These flights were not without excitement as Lieutenant William Read of 3 Squadron discovered on 16 September:

  ‘At 2.00pm we got orders to do a reconnaissance between Soissons and Vailly, north of the River Aisne. When we were 4,000 feet over Vailly, the Germans opened fire on us with anti-aircraft guns and they made surprisingly good shooting for the first few shots. The first shell was the nearest, it burst about twenty feet below us and I felt the machine shake and the left wing was boosted up a little. I made rapidly for a thick white cloud on my right and as soon as I came out of it they were at us again, but the shots were wide …we got back to our landing ground at 4.15pm with our report.’277

  Once the British batteries had opened fire on their targets it was possible for an aircraft to direct fire by a pre-arranged set of signals using an Aldis lamp or a Very pistol. Lieutenant Kenlis Atkinson of 4 Squadron took off from a field north of Bourg on the morning of 15 September to guide artillery fire onto German batteries near the Chemin des Dames:

  ‘Went out again with Roche [Lieutenant H J Roche] to observe effect of gunfire which they were going to fire in salvos for us and to try and find German heavy batteries which have been giving us hell. Did not see any salvos but found 2 batteries of heavy guns hidden in the corner of a wood and fired two Very lights over them to give our gunners the line.’278

  On the same day an aircraft piloted by Captain Lionel Charlton from 3 Squadron was instrumental in successfully directing fire on enemy positions using Very lights whilst on 24 September, Lieutenant Damer Allen from 4 Squadron used flash signals – probably from an Aldis lamp – from the air to indicate the fall of artillery fire. It was hazardous work which demanded the aircraft remained aloft directing artillery fire whilst the German gunners below – and indeed any handy infantryman – loosed off in an attempt to bring the aircraft and its crew down.

  Captain Henry Jackson, an observer with 3 Squadron, was only too well aware of the dangers of working with the artillery from the air. Writing home to his mother on 27 September he described the work he and the squadron were engaged in:

  ‘Our chief job is locating the position of the German hidden batteries, and correcting the fire of our batteries on them. It is most interesting. They have a fairly good anti-aircraft gun, which fires a shrapnel shell with which they make fairly good practice at us, but they have not actually brought anyone down yet. I had a bit of luck about three weeks ago, a bullet from a rifle went through the back of my seat, through my leather flying coat but was turned off by a steel rib in my Sam Browne belt and I was no more the worse except for a bruised back. There are generally shots through our wings but they do no harm and altogether the Flying Corps has been extraordinarily lucky.’279

  RFC pilots and observers expected to be shot at by the enemy, after all, wrote Atkinson, ‘this was war!’. What did irritate British aircrew was the continual barrage of fire from their own side which greeted their appearance; British and French troops had little idea of aircraft recognition and to them every aircraft was potentially hostile. Even after the RFC took to painting a large union flag on the underside of each wing they were still peppered by the infantry – despite a demand from GHQ that this should stop immediately. The problem was only improved after it was pointed out that only the red cross of the Union Flag was visible when viewed from the ground and the troops were confusing it with the black cross used by the German Air Service. Eventually the British adopted the circular markings in use by the French Aéronautique Militaire, preserving national identity by transposing the blue and red to form the roundel which is still in use today.

  To an extent one can sympathise with the British Tommies in their confusion. By September 1914 they were only too well aware that aerial observation was being used to great effect by the German Air Service. During the retreat it had been noticed that the appearance of a German aircraft – usually a Rumpler Taube – generally heralded an artillery bombardment. The Taube would indicate the direction of targets with smoke balls or Very lights and some time later German artillery would deliver an alarmingly accurate bombardment. Aylmer Haldane described an occasion at Bucy-le-Long on 17 September when the village came under a heavy bombardment from German howitzers after a visit from an enemy aeroplane:

  ‘For three-quarters of an hour the bombardment went on without interruption, and as it was the first time we had been subjected to the fire of heavy howitzers, it perhaps impressed itself more on our memories than did subsequent displays of a similar nature. Fortunately having had my suspicions of a hostile aeroplane, which the evening before had hovered over us and had seemed to pay special attention to the village which lay some 300 feet lower than the trenches, I had ordered the whole of the transport and the bivouacs of the two reserve battalions to be shifted before breakfast. When, therefore, the German howitzers opened fire, their shells, while causing great damage to the houses, failed to inflict much harm on the troops or transport.’280

  We have no way of knowing whether the artillery bombardment on Bucy that morning was the work of the guns at Condé or not, but Haldane and the men of 10 Brigad
e would have been delighted with the results of a 3 Squadron reconnaissance of 24 September which they would have considered to be a justifiable reimbursement for their earlier discomfort. Taking off from Feré en Tardenois at 6.30am with his observer to map the exact locations of the German batteries operating on the Chivres spur, Lieutenant Read and his observer successfully mapped the battery positions and landed at the forward airstrip at Serches to confer with the battery commander:

  ‘On our report it was decided to bombard the fort with four 6-inch howitzers which have just arrived from England. We went up again to observe the effect of our shell fire on the fort. It was deadly accurate, every shell falling inside the fort doing deadly work as far as we could see. The enemy’s aircraft guns played on us once but we kept out of range of them. Returned to camp at 6.00pm.’281

  Read’s flight over Condé was also observed by General Smith-Dorrien who extolled the virtues of aerial observation in a telegram to GHQ dated the same day, ‘I watched for a long time an aeroplane observing fire for the 6-inch howitzers of 3rd Division. It was at times smothered with hostile anti-aircraft fire but nothing daunted it’. The next day Read was in the air again over Missy directing the fire of a 60-pounder battery:

  ‘We got our battery onto them and our shells were just right, and I think we must have paid them back for the bad time they have been giving our troops in Missy. All the while we were circling about and observing, the enemy plastered us with their anti-aircraft guns until the air all round was thick with shell bursts. I kept turning, diving and climbing so as to offer as difficult a target as possible but we lost height a good deal, and when we were at 3,500 feet they managed to burst a shell near enough to put a piece of it through our propeller. So having got our battery the range we decided to get away and land.’282

  As Read and others had demonstrated, the use of Very lights and flash signalling could be very effective, but as James and Lewis knew, wireless was far more accurate and much faster. Since their arrival in France new wireless equipment had been obtained in Paris which was much lighter and more powerful than the rather bulky Marconi wireless sets, but even with the smaller Rouzet sets the equipment still weighed around 70lbs and filled the observer’s cockpit area. In addition a 250 foot aerial had to be unwound from a reel fitted on the outside of the fuselage alongside the pilot before transmission could begin – a procedure which had to be reversed before the aircraft landed. The communication from air to ground was only a one-way signal using Morse code which was received by a ground station located near the battery. Replies from the ground used a combination of visual signals and flashing lights. However, despite the limitations and size of equipment, by late September wireless-equipped aircraft had established a new norm, and when one considers that this revolution in artillery observation had taken place using just two BE2a aircraft from the Wireless Flight; the magnitude of the achievement can be appreciated. John Mowbray was typical of many artillery officers in his enthusiasm of the potential of wireless observation:

  ‘Without air reconnaissance, accurate artillery work at long range is not possible. We have had some excellent results with an air observer who controls his machine, observes fire and signals results by wireless alone. An exceptional man is evidently needed for this … the other day James put a heavy battery on target in three rounds.’283

  These small beginnings gave rise to the creation of a separate Headquarters Wireless Telegraphy Unit (HQWTU) on 27 September under the command of Major Herbert Musgrave. Musgrave was another Royal Engineers officer who had begun his career with 7/Field Company in 1896. Realizing the military potential of aviation he had learned to fly at the Bristol School on Salisbury Plain and was awarded his Royal Aero Club Certificate on 12 November 1912, joining the RFC a month later. Never a natural pilot, Musgrave’s talents lay in research and development and it is largely through his efforts in solving the myriad of technical difficulties involved in installing wireless equipment in aircraft that wireless observation became so successful.

  One of the first series of communications sent down by wireless from an aircraft was recorded on 24 September, it was probably from one of the two BE2a aircraft flown by the pilots of the Wireless Flight, but exactly which pilot is not known:

  ‘4.02pm: A very little short. Fire Fire.

  4.04pm: Fire again. Fire again.

  4.12pm: A little short; line OK.

  4.15pm: Short. Over. Over and a little left.

  4.20pm: You were just between two batteries, search 200 yds each side of your last shot. Range OK.

  4.22 pm: You have them.

  4.26pm: About 50 yds short and to the right.

  4.37pm: Your last shot in the middle of three batteries in action; search all round within 300 yds of your last shot and you have them.

  4.42pm: I am coming home now.’284

  The success of wireless observation and the increasing demand for dedicated corps wireless aircraft initially exceeded the RFC’s ability to fully satisfy all the army’s requirements. The four weeks the RFC spent over the Aisne had opened the door for a new age of artillery observation and had seen the beginning of a flying service which would grow from four squadrons into a significant force of some 300,000 officers and men and over 22,000 aircraft.

  Chapter 14

  Prisoners of War

  At Anor we were placed in a wine factory with French native soldiers, French soldiers and our own. It was so crowded that it was difficult to lie down. The German lieutenant told me that a party of prisoners had been attacked here and that very stern orders had now been issued. The party in question were the unwounded officers and men of my regiment.

  Captain P H Lowe, 1/West Yorkshire Regiment – after being captured

  Being taken prisoner of war by enemy forces can be a hazardous business and little has changed in this respect since opposing armies first clashed on the field of battle. Remaining alive after surrendering is by no means certain in the heat of battle, enemy infantry who are hell bent on killing their foe may not recognize the intention to surrender or indeed be in a receptive frame of mind to take prisoners. Despite international law which surrounds the protection of soldiers who have laid down their arms, there are countless tales of men who, in the very act of surrendering, have been ‘dealt with’ instantly by their captors or even summarily executed en route to captivity. On the Aisne in 1914 wounded men were certainly killed by the Germans if the evidence of men captured can be taken at face value. Whether the same can be said of the British is difficult to establish but war is a brutal business as witnessed by Private Arthur Burgess of the Cameron Highlanders who, after his capture, was a helpless spectator at the death of one of his battalion officers, Hector Cameron, on the battlefield:

  ‘2nd Lieut H W L Cameron, severely wounded in shoulder and both legs, was lying on a waterproof sheet and was unable to stand. A German noncommissioned officer shot him dead with a revolver, presumably because he was unable to walk. This occurred about 7 or 8 o’clock pm of the night 14/15th. Corporal Mackae and Private Moffat, both of 1st Cameron Highlanders were witness of this.’285

  Prisoners taken on the Aisne in September and October 1914 were subject to the same lottery of life and death which the BEF had experienced since the encounter at Mons on 23 August. Apart from the dreadful episode witnessed by Arthur Burgess, the evidence found in written accounts of surviving prisoners of war suggests that British prisoners were generally treated with a reasonable degree of care on the battlefield. But it was often a different story once prisoners found themselves being herded into captivity. Time and time again the accounts of British soldiers tell of an almost ritual abuse from German soldiers and civilians and an alarming refusal from organizations such as the German Red Cross to provide water and food to men who were clearly in a poor state of physical and mental health. A number of those who were captured on the Aisne had to endure conduct from their captors which can only be described as vindictive and barbaric. Even if we accept that much of this appea
rs to have been the result of the white flag incidents, which both sides depicted as treachery on the part of the other, it still contrasts hugely with the treatment of German prisoners by the British.

  Captain Lancelot Robins was captured on the night of 14 September whilst returning to the 2/Welch lines after reconnoitring the enemy outposts in the Chivy valley. Having shot three Germans with his revolver he heard what he thought was a patrol from his own battalion and whilst running towards them he was struck over the head with a rifle. He had run straight into the arms of a German patrol:

  ‘I was knocked down by the blow which was delivered with the butt end or the barrel of a rifle, and was rendered unconscious for the time. I was afterwards struck across the face, from which I have lost the sight of the right eye and the left eye has been affected. I could easily have been shot, but I think they wished to avoid the noise as I must have been quite close to our own lines.’286

  Robins was eventually taken back to the German lines and the next morning, still suffering from concussion, he was marched with a large group of others from the Black Watch and Coldstream Guards to Laon. One Coldstream Guardsman, Private James Napier, remembers seeing Robins: