I checked my compass and saw that we were heading east. My fuel gauge showed we had used too much fuel already and I banked to port to take us home. I saw Freddie and his flight already heading west and, below me, the Bristols were chugging towards our lines too. My mirror showed that I still had my flight intact and I sent the message back to Sergeant Kenny that A Flight was coming home.
There was an exuberant mood on the ground. My flight had managed to shoot down three Germans and even George Jenkin had managed to make his first kill although he had to share it with Lieutenant Clayson. I noticed that Archie and Randolph had not returned and I went to take an early bath. I would enjoy a drink in the mess before dinner. The report could wait.
Gordy and I were on our second beer when we heard the car pull up outside. Sergeant Green came to the mess, “Gentlemen, Colonel Leach, asks if you could join him.”
“Be there in a moment, Flight.” As he left I said, “They have been at Headquarters longer than normal. Do you think something is up?”
“There is always something up but it never bodes well for us.”
Ted and Freddie were there already. “Well chaps we now know why they asked to us check the trenches around Cambrai, there will be a major offensive there sometime in November. We have three weeks to photograph it and then three weeks to clear the skies of Germans.”
“They do know that the Flying Circus is in this sector?”
“They do but Intelligence thinks that the Germans are having supply problems. At home we are turning out the new SE 5 in huge numbers and that particular aeroplane is capable of over a hundred and thirty five miles an hour. The General is confident.”
I looked at Freddie and shook my head. That speed seemed impossible. Last year we had been flying the Gunbus and were happy if we could make eighty five miles an hour.
Ted asked, hopefully, “Are we getting them?”
“Eventually we might but we are in a unique position. We have the Bristols which can photograph the ground and they can be protected by the Camels. We won’t be getting any new aeroplanes until the New Year.”
I didn’t particularly want a new aeroplane. I liked the Camel but the extra speed meant we would have more chance of survival until this damned war was over.
Randolph said, “One bit of good news from the general though. After the offensive the whole squadron is being given a three week leave. By then the new SE 5 squadrons will be ready and they are being phased in.”
The thought of leave made me smile. Both Gordy and Freddie looked equally happy. I saw that Ted looked almost indifferent. I suddenly remembered that Ted had nothing at home to look forward to. His conversation with me had told me that he was putting all thoughts of a woman in his life on hold until the war was over.
This would be the first time when the raid would actually be useful. It would be the opportunity for Ted and Archie to feed back directly about what they were photographing. For me it would be the chance to call up reinforcements. I would certainly ask for help if the Flying Circus arrived.
That first morning was almost too easy. The Germans were not expecting us and our Bristols combed the battlefield as far as Cambrai. The ground fire was annoying and I saw holes appearing in the wings of the Bristols but they could be repaired. We had nothing to do as no fighter appeared. The test would come on day two and three when the Germans would realise what we were doing. However I was just grateful to get the extra hours flying with the new pilots. It was a luxury. We had not lost a pilot for almost a month and that was a rarity. We knew it could not last but the more hours in the air a pilot had the more chance he had of actually surviving the war. None of us believed that this offensive would be the one to end the war. We had heard that claim too many times but we would be able to measure our success by the ground gained.
I was right. The second day the Germans came to chase us away. I used the radio as soon as I saw the black crosses appear in the distance. We were further west on the second day. Someone had actually had the sense to begin the photography close to our target before the enemy were aware of what we were up to. I waved to Freddie and my flight. Cocking my Vickers we began to descend towards the enemy formation. They would target the Bristols. They knew that we would not be using cameras. I felt sorry for the pilots and gunners of the Bristols. They were like the bait and they would have to take whatever punishment was dished out.
The Germans used a different tactic that day. They used two squadrons. One came for us while the other flew low and attacked the Bristols. We approached each other in our two totally different formations. Once again I would be the focus of the German fire and I wondered when my luck would run out. When would I face a German pilot with the nerve to wait until the last minute and shred my propeller? It was not that day. The pilot of the Albatros who faced me was not a leader. I saw that he was struggling to maintain a straight line. That was the nerves. It told me he was a young pilot or a new pilot at least.
I used my usual trick of inviting the shot by lifting my nose slightly and then, as I jerked it straight back down, firing a hopeful burst. It worked. The young pilot fired as I lifted my nose and the bullets screamed over my head. My bullets smacked into the struts and the wires of his wings. Once again fortune smiled on me. I saw one of the wires severed. It would unnerve the pilot as he heard the twang and the port side of his aeroplane would be less stable. I moved my stick a little to starboard and Nat Hazell gave him a burst too. He made the mistake of pulling back on his stick and Lieutenant Hazell had another kill as his bullets stitched a line along the fuselage. The aeroplane continued in its loop. The pilot was dead.
I continued my bank to the right and it brought me alarmingly close to the next Albatros. I took a snap shot and my bullets rattled off the engine. I had to jerk my nose up and I felt bullets striking my fuselage. All that I could see were wings with black crosses. I had led my flight into the heart of the enemy. This would normally be fatal but the Camel was so manoeuvrable that I knew I could use its impressive handling to wrest the advantage back. I kept pulling on the stick. I felt the force of the wind as my Camel fought me but it kept coming around. We were a small target and we were moving very quickly. The mechanics had done a superb job. The hard part about pulling such a loop was keeping your orientation. I do not know why but I always found it easy. The pilots who followed me just had to keep on my tail.
I saw an Albatros below me as I came down. He was a perfect cross in my sights. At less than a hundred yards I pulled my triggers. Every bullet struck home. The pilot disappeared in a sea of blood. Such was the power of the twin Vickers that I saw daylight beneath his body as the bullets punched a hole in his fuselage. He was so close that my Camel almost collided with his tail. I came underneath him and found myself behind his leader. I fired again and his tail took many hits. I was in danger of ramming him and I pulled to starboard. I saw bullets strike his Albatros from the guns of Lieutenant Fall who was behind me. He began to spiral to earth.
I saw that Jack and I had lost the others. We were almost alone now. My loop had lost most of my flight and the Germans. I levelled out and checked the sky. The formations had disintegrated. I saw individual pilots chasing each other around the sky. To the west I saw the Bristols as they headed home with the precious photographs. I started to circle. Jack and I would wait for the other Camels to rejoin us and I would keep the last of my ammunition in case they needed help.
One by one they returned. I was like a mother hen counting her chicks. We formed a circle. We would soon have to return home. One was missing. Nat had not come back. I radioed that one of my flight was missing and headed home. Perhaps, like Lieutenant Carpenter he had been forced down and he would rejoin us.
We were the last aeroplanes to land. Roger came over to me. “Nat bought it, sir. He went after an Albatros and flew into two Fokkers. He must have died instantly. Sorry sir.”
I shook my head, “It isn’t your fault; it is war. And he had another kill today.”
The death of such a likeable pilot had a demoralising effect. Although we had shot down more of the enemy we had lost one of the new pilots and I saw in the eyes of my flight the spectre of mortality. It was a sombre mood in the mess that night.
“Don’t take it to heart, Bill. We did well and the photographs are top notch.”
“I know, Archie. You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs but I was beginning to believe that, if we avoided the Circus, then my lads might actually survive. What happens if the Circus comes to this sector? We will be massacred.”
“No Bill. You have done a cracking job with your lads. Your Camels have a better kill ratio than any other flight on the western front. I heard that from the General. This is your first loss in a while. The Germans are losing more men than we are.”
I shook my head, “I can’t believe that we are hoping that the enemy will bleed to death before we do.”
“It is a fact of life, or in this case death. Besides we are producing more aeroplanes and when the Yanks finally get over here we might just have more men than the Germans.”
I took a swig of wine. “I couldn’t do what you do, sir. I couldn’t send young men to their deaths. I wouldn’t be able to sleep.”
“And you think I do? I am just praying for this war to end so that I can get back to Scotland and my family. I have a nice little farm in the borders and I fall asleep at night making plans for what I will grow and what animals I will rear. That is how I get to sleep. You get to sleep thinking about your Beattie. All of us have different ways to cope. We just have to believe that this war will end before we are all dead.”
And of course he was right. That was the only way to get through the horror. Concentrate on the trivia and not the deaths. If you thought about the deaths then you would go insane.
Chapter 9
In the event we were rained off the next day. It should have made life easier but we also received the news of an air raid over London in which twenty one people died and seventy nine were injured. The odds that one of them was either Beattie or Mary was slim but it did not stop Gordy and me pestering Randolph all day to find out if our loved ones were safe. We did not discover the truth until late at night by which time we were both nervous wrecks. It made us both more determined than ever to finish this war as soon as possible.
The late night and the worry made me grouchy the next day. Bates noticed it immediately. He was incredibly sensitive to my moods. He smiled at my snarls and nodded at my grunts. As he handed me my goggles, flying helmet and gloves he just said, “Try not to take it out too much on the young gentlemen, sir. It is a hard enough job for them without worrying if their commanding officer is going to bite their heads off.”
I turned to snap at him and then I saw the look on his face. He was smiling but there was steel in his eyes. I knew that he was right. I forced a smile, “I will try, Bates, and thank you.”
“It’s my job sir and besides you are so even tempered normally that one can accept the occasional aberration. Just so long as it is occasional.”
We did not need a morning briefing. Until the photography was complete then we would be over Cambrai each day. Two of the Bristols were unfit to fly as was one of Freddie’s flight, Lieutenant Duffy. It would make the task of the Bristols harder as they would need to cover a larger area with fewer aeroplanes.
As we headed east across the ground the troops would traverse I could not help noticing that it seemed to be solid barbed wire. I did not envy the infantry travelling over that. Our shells were supposed to clear a path but it only seemed to make it even more entangled. Until they had some way to walk over wire then the machine gunners would be able to slaughter the advancing infantry with ease. The other noticeable feature was the number of abandoned farms and small villages. I wondered how on earth the owners would be able to move back once the war was over. I knew that many soldiers lay just a few feet from the surface buried in a sea of mud. This part of the front had not seen a major offensive yet but once it did then the war would seed the land with fresh corpses. Farmers in the future would have a grim harvest.
The Germans were waiting. We knew in our hearts that they would, inevitably, react to our daily sortie. This time it was they who held the advantage of height and they came down in waves of five aeroplanes. At least our Camels were a little higher and we did not have to climb steeply to counter the threat but the climb would eat into our fuel and shorten the time we could spend in the air.
It was not the Circus. Each time we went up I looked for the dreaded triplanes. When I did not see them then I knew we had some chance of success. They were the Fokker D. IV. I suspected they were the same ones we had met before for the livery on the aeroplanes looked the same. There were more of them which led me to believe that this was a Jasta.
The twin Spandau of two Fokkers converged on me. They had fired early but were trying to get me in a cone of fire. I lifted my nose and, as I dipped it again quickly, began to bank to starboard. I felt their bullets tear into my port lower wing but Lieutenant Clayson had a shot at them from the side. I saw a black cross appear as my nose swung around to the last aeroplane in the line and I fired at the cross. Miraculously I hit the cross. I did not think there would be much damage but the Fokker began to yaw. I realised that I must have hit his controls.
I banked to port. It was pure instinct which made me do so. The space I had occupied was filled with steel jacketed parabellums as the Fokker from above dived down. I turned my bank into a climb and passed the German pilot. My move took me up above the dogfight but, when I looked in my mirror, I saw that I had lost my wingman. My Camels were engaged in deadly duels with the Fokkers. It was not a fair fight as we were outnumbered. I brought my Camel around and lined up on the two who were chasing Jack Fall. He was twisting, turning and attempting to loop. It made him a small target but each time they fired at him they were hitting his bus. It would only be a matter of time before they made a critical hit.
The height I had gained gave me more speed over the already slow Fokkers. I waited until I was less than fifty yards from the rearmost German and gave him a steady burst. My speed took the bullets along his fuselage and into the cockpit. I held the finger on the trigger as his aeroplane disappeared from my sights and was replaced by the next Fokker. As soon as my bullets hit his rudder I saw him jerk his head around and then he began to bank. I managed to hit him again before he flew from my sights.
Jack was in a bad way. His Camel was oozing smoke and his wings looked like a piece of Swiss cheese. I waved for him to get home.
“Jack Fall is heading back, Sergeant Kenny. His bus is badly shot up. Over.”
It was the first time I had used the word ‘Over’ in such a way and it felt weird. Sergeant Kenny had asked me to use it when I had finished a transmission to let him or another operator know that the message was complete.
I looked around the sky and saw that most of my pilots were following Jack home. I was still high enough to be able to look down on them. I began a slow descent; I did not want to waste fuel and I followed the three Fokkers who were trying to pick off the injured birds. I fired at a range of over three hundred yards as I closed with them. I wanted to discourage them. The tracer rounds showed me that I was slightly off target. I adjusted my direction and, at two hundred yards, fired again. This time some of my rounds hit the tail of one of the Germans. I made my descent steeper to increase my speed and I banked to port. I fired at a Fokker and then dived beneath him to come up under the last of the three hunters. My bullets hit his undercarriage. I saw one of the wheels come off and he jerked his Fokker around and joined his two comrades as they headed east.
I came up and flew alongside Lieutenant Clayson who waved a grateful hand at me. I looked along the line and saw Jenkin and Hickey. They had both survived but their buses looked only a little better than Lieutenant Fall’s. Once again we landed amidst a scene of confusion and action. Aeroplanes looked to be seemingly abandoned on the field. Huddles of mechanics and medic
al staff surrounded many of them. It is lucky for us that the Camel did not need much field to land in.
When I climbed out I saw that I had taken more damage than I had thought. The mechanics would have their hands full with my flight.
It looked like the Bristols had borne the brunt of the damage. I saw two gunners being stretchered away and Tony Alexander looked to have caught a bullet in the arm. Ted and Gordy trudged towards me.
“Well we were definitely caught with our trousers down there. They were ready for us. There was ground fire as well as the damned Fokkers. We only got a couple of photographs before we had to take evasive action.”
“It is our own fault, Gordy, we went over at exactly the same time and the same height. The Hun is not stupid is he? Where is Archie?”
“He went to telephone headquarters. He wants us stood down to recover.”
“That makes sense. A different squadron might vary it a little.”
“How do you mean, Bill?”
We fly in a predictable way. We come in four lines at the same height each day. Even our little tricks like me raising my nose and then dropping it when I fire are known. I always turn to starboard and my lads follow me. I hate to admit it but if we had radios which could transmit and receive in the buses it would be much easier to vary things.”
“Well that isn’t going to happen in our lifetime.”
I shook my head, “The way things are going this war could last another ten years and we might just get them.”
“Well you are cheerful. Let’s go and find Archie and see if we have got a reprieve.”
We walked into the office and Archie waved us to the table where the whisky was already open.
“Yes General, I know but we took a beating today and we only have half of the Bristols able to fly.” There was a silence and Archie rolled his eyes. “Thank you sir. Even twenty four hours will make a difference.” After a moment or two he slammed the phone down. “These desk wallahs haven’t the first clue about what it takes to keep a squadron up to scratch. We have one day.”
1918 We will remember them Page 8