The Courage of the Early Morning

by William Arthur Bishop

  It lasted for at least ten minutes. To Bishop it seemed an eternity. Then suddenly it was over. Bishop braced himself, for what he did not know.

  Sir Godfrey shifted his penetrating gaze to one of the escorting officers. “What shall we do?” he asked sternly. “Severely reprimand him?”

  The escorting officer smiled uneasily.

  “Right then. Bishop, you are severely reprimanded,” Sir Godfrey said with blessed finality. “Dismissed . . . but not you, Bishop—wait here.”

  The escorting officers made their exit. “Sit down,” Sir Godfrey said. It was an order, not an invitation.

  Sir Godfrey towered over him, peering down at him and, Bishop thought, still very angry.

  “You know you were a fool, Bishop,” Sir Godfrey said.

  “Yes Sir.”

  “But damn it—you were right,” Sir Godfrey said. “The Americans won’t have enough planes ready to matter a damn before next summer. But you shouldn’t have said so. Tell me what you saw.”

  The subject was no longer his undeniable misconduct. Now he became part of a discussion on the serious matter of American aircraft production with a senior member of the Air Council. Sir Godfrey listened attentively, nodding in agreement from time to time. Finally he said: “We were afraid there would be production problems in the States, and it couldn’t have happened at a worse time. The situation on the Western Front is that the Germans can now concentrate all their strength there. The collapse of the Russian forces on the Eastern Front has let the Huns send forty-two divisions into France and Belgium, and we’ll undoubtedly face an offensive as soon as the weather clears in the spring and the enemy will undoubtedly have their best chance of breaking our lines. Our own best chance of preventing this is a greatly reinforced air force.”

  The abandonment of the costly air fighting school at Loch Doon was a serious setback to the need for a stronger air force, but it was the only possible decision in the circumstances. Thousands of pounds and, more important, many months had been wasted because of inadequate planning. Apart from the unsuitable terrain, it was discovered that fog and mist could prevent the Loch Doon establishment from being used as an aerodrome for more than half the year.

  But the dire need for additional Allied air power meant that Bishop was no longer an unemployed airman. He was assigned forthwith to form a fighter squadron of his own. Lord Hugh Cecil conveyed the good news and added blandly, “Of course, you’ll have to learn how to fly all over again.”

  Bishop thought Cecil was being unnecessarily jocular about his traditional shortcomings as a pilot. But he obliged with a smile and said, “Oh, I’ll have to take a couple of flights to get into practice again.”

  Cecil shook his head.“You haven’t been in a plane for more than six months,” he said, “and don’t think we’ve been standing still in that time. The planes are more highly powered, get more altitude, are more manoeuvrable and all that sort of thing.”

  But the principal change was that pilots were better trained. They went to the front with greater knowledge of their machines and more understanding of the dynamics of flight. This marked change was due to new methods of instruction, and the man who contributed most to this was Bob Smith-Barry, a crippled pilot who in 1916 had been the commanding officer of 60 Squadron. He gave Bishop a refresher course at Gosport Flying School near Portsmouth. It was a far cry from the cursory instruction of a little more than a year earlier in the clumsy and antiquated Shorthorn. Two weeks later, when Bishop—and his instructor—were satisfied that his sense of timing had been sufficiently recaptured, Bishop left for Hounslow aerodrome, just outside London, to take up his post as commanding officer of the newly formed 85 Squadron.

  Bishop had a free hand in selecting pilots, so naturally he sought out the comrades with whom he had fought at Filescamp Farm. Not many were still around. Grid Caldwell had also been given command of his own unit, 74 Squadron, and had already snaffled most of the best available pilots. However, Bishop ran down Spencer Horn in Scotland, instructing at the Ayr school for fighter pilots, and he did not need much persuasion to join Bishop as a flight commander of 85 Squadron. He enlisted two other flight leaders, both veteran air fighters. One was Arthur “Lobo” Benbow, who wore a monocle in his eye and a Military Cross on his breast. The other was C. B. A. Baker, a soft-spoken youngster who had won both the Military Cross and the French Croix de Guerre. Next came Beverley MacDonald, known as the “Bull Pup,” who had been the battalion sergeant major in Bishop’s class at Royal Military College, and a fellow Canadian, Roy Hall.

  At Ayr, Horn had been training American pilots, and he recommended three of them. On March 30 Horn introduced the “Three Musketeers” to Bishop, and that marked the beginning of a memorable international comradeship. They were Larry Callahan, a tall youth from Louisville, Kentucky, and two Princeton graduates, Mac Grider and Elliott White Springs. Springs, a short voluble man, was by all odds the most unusual personality of the trio. He was the son of a millionaire textile manufacturer with mills in South Carolina and New England. Springs and his father were not on good terms, and when the young airman brooded on this unhappy situation he became almost suicidally depressed. But most of the time he consoled himself by inventing new combinations of drinks for the refreshment of himself, his friends, and anyone else, male or female, who happened to be in the vicinity. In later years Springs inherited his father’s mills, expanded them, became a civilian test pilot and amateur aviator, wrote several books, and concocted naughty advertisements for his Springmaid fabrics (which caused protests from moralistic groups and soul-searching on the part of publishers of national magazines who coveted Springs’ lucrative advertising but deplored the sensuality of his words and pictures).

  Mac Grider kept a diary which Springs later edited and published (and probably contributed to from his own memories). It gives vivid glimpses of Bishop, Squadron 85, wartime England and France, and the confusion that existed between the United States and Britain in the early attempts of the two countries to mesh their war establishments.

  Grider’s diary describes their first meeting with Bishop:

  Springs and Callahan came down from Ayr with me and Captain Horn, who is a flight commander at Hounslow in the squadron that the great Major Bishop, V.C., D.S.O., M.C. etc., is organizing to take overseas, took us out to see him. He wants the three of us to go with him. They are letting Bishop pick his own pilots and he went with us to the U.S. headquarters to try and arrange it. A Colonel Morrow told us it couldn’t be done. The whole staff nearly lost their eyes staring at us when we strolled out, arm in arm with the great Bishop. He has a very pretty chauffeur. . . .

  In other ways, too, Bishop was enjoying the fruits of authority. To be near the airport where he was organizing 85 Squadron, he and Margaret rented a house at Osterly Court which immediately became the informal headquarters for members of the squadron.

  Margaret at first found the life of an air force squadron commander’s wife a little perplexing. As a member of a wealthy and ultra-conservative family she had led a sheltered life before she married Bishop. Certainly she had never been exposed to the extraordinary outlook of English and American youths engaged in an exciting adventure and coloured by the knowledge that sudden death was likely to be their fate.

  “Don’t they ever sleep?” she once asked Bishop plaintively. She gradually became reconciled, a process hastened by her own brother, Hank Burden, a tall, handsome, curly-haired lad whom she idolized and who, like Bishop, had transferred from the army to the Royal Flying Corps.

  By the time Bishop and Margaret arrived in England Hank was already an ace with six enemy machines to his credit. On his first visit to Osterly Court, Margaret rushed out to greet him as he opened the white gate at the end of the path. He sauntered jauntily toward the house with a broad grin on his face and a bottle of champagne in each hand.

  Margaret, who never had seen her brother take more than a sip of sherry, was surprised. But Bishop was highly pleased. Hank’s high-s
pirited entrance earned for him the right to celebrate in the honoured custom of the flying fraternity. But what finally convinced Margaret that the boisterous proceedings at Osterly Court were socially acceptable was the good-humoured approval with which Lady St. Helier and Princess Margaret Louise, frequent visitors to the Bishop home, regarded the high-spirited behaviour of the members of 85 Squadron.

  Soon after his return to London from Canada, Bishop took Margaret to Buckingham Palace to receive his fourth decoration, the bar to the D.S.O. King George V made a gentle joke. “If you win any more honours we will have to place them before your name instead of after it—we will have to call you ‘Arch Bishop.’” After the investiture Princess Marie Louise showed the entranced Margaret through the palace apartments in which she had once lived. After that experience, Bishop and his friends could do no wrong in Margaret’s eyes.

  The Princess took a special interest in Larry Callahan, the youngest of the Three Musketeers. Perhaps it was because he always addressed her, in his slow Kentucky drawl, as “Ma’am”—which happened to be the correct way to address royalty. Bishop was about to compliment Cal on his surprising knowledge of English protocol when Cal asked him casually: “Who’s that old babe that always hangs around your house?”

  Bishop grinned, but did not explain. He enjoyed the situation too much to spoil it. Grider in his diary entry of May 17 describes how the Three Musketeers learned the identity of “the old babe.”

  We had a bunch of Brass Hats from the War Office down at Hounslow today and we put on an exhibition of formation flying and stunting for them that was pretty good—except for Springs’ landing. His wheels hit a soft spot and he turned over on his back and his head was shoved into the mud. He was a great sight when he walked back to where all the generals were standing. He had on slacks and a white shirt and wasn’t wearing helmet or goggles and his face and head were all covered with mud.

  Mrs. Bishop had a lady with her and she invited us to tea with them. We explained that we were all pretty dirty but she said never mind. The lady proved to be very nice and very much interested in Americans. She was the most patriotic person I’ve ever met because she always talking about the King. When I told her how much all the Americans liked serving with the British, she said she was glad and she knew the King would be delighted. In fact, she knew the King was hoping to decorate an American airman soon. All this sounded pretty far-fetched, but we got on fine with her, we told her some funny stories and she nearly died laughing. We had a taxi waiting and offered to take her back to town but she said she’d rather take a bus and get the air and it would take her right by the palace.

  As we went out we met the mother of Cunningham-Reid one of the Squadron members, and she nearly broke a leg curtsying, and I noticed Mrs. Bishop do the same when we left to take the lad to the bus. I asked Cunningham-Reid why the gymnastics and he told me the lady was Princess Marie Louise. All three of us have been trying to remember whether we cracked any jokes about the King.Mrs.Bishop must have been laughing merrily. She’s a peach. We’re all crazy about her. Well, I have pressed the flesh of royalty now. My hand has gotten accustomed to the grasp of nobility and now I know the feel of the real thing. Who says we were democrats? We’re all snobs underneath the cuticle.

  Bishop needed all his connections in high places to straighten out an unpleasant tangle of red tape that was having an unfortunate effect on the morale of his three American pilots. At first Springs and Cal were refused reassignment to 85 Squadron, and they returned to Ayr, as Grider noted in his diary, “after a very unsatisfactory conference with a major at headquarters, who is an officer all right but even an Act of Congress couldn’t make him a gentleman.”

  Bishop and Grider organized a plot to kidnap the other two members of the Three Musketeers for 85 Squadron.

  Early in April, 1918, Springs and Cal came to London from Ayr under orders to join another squadron for service in France. Meanwhile Bishop pulled strings, and when the two men reached London they found to their bitter disgust that they had been judged “not yet competent to fly combat.”

  In 85 Squadron’s mess at Hounslow, Springs told Bishop and Grider: “Show me the son-of-a-bitch who declared I wasn’t ready to fly and I’ll wring his neck.”

  “But only after I strangle him,” said Cal.

  Grider pointed at Bishop. “He did it.” And both men roared with laughter. Springs and Cal joined the merriment after Bishop explained that it was a ruse to delay their departure and give him time to wangle them into 85 Squadron. He succeeded in doing this a few days later.

  But the situation was still unsatisfactory. Although the American pilots took their duty orders from Bishop, their discipline was still under the U.S. Army control. The three Americans were particularly galled at having to wear American uniforms which were uncomfortable in comparison with the casual RFC clothing. Another entry in Grider’s diary reads: “I’m an American and proud of it but I’m damned if I can take pride in the boobs that are running our flying corps. For instance how can we fly when our necks are being choked off by these 1865 model collars?”

  Bishop diplomatically arranged things so that eventually the Three Musketeers were fully under his control, and Grider could write joyfully: “Bishop says he doesn’t care where we stay, so we have a house in Berkeley Square! A friend of a friend is a Lordship who has this four-story place he is willing to rent us for ten pounds a week. We also have a cook and butler.”

  They celebrated by throwing a memorable dinner party, which Grider duly recorded thus:

  Major Bishop, Horn and the rest of the squadron came in from Hounslow, and Colonel Hastings and Col. Hepburn of the Canadian General Staff were there too.

  We found out too late that we couldn’t get any meat without ration coupons, and there was little else we could buy. However, we got around the food problem easily. All we had cooked was soup and fish, but Springs made a big tub of eggnogg and a couple of big pitchers full of mint julep. To make sure no one got beyond the fish course we shook up cocktails too.

  Springs was at the head of the table and served. Everybody had a bottle of port and a bottle of champagne. The butler brought in a big platter of fish and Springs served them by picking them up by the tail and tossing them to the guests as if they were seals. At the end of the fish course I was alone at the table. The rest were chasing each other all over the place.

  Before going to the theatre, where we had a box, all these ruffians armed themselves from His Lordship’s wonderful collection of ancient weapons—swords, machetes, shillelaghs, maces, clubs, bayonets, pikes, flintlock pistols, and assorted daggers and dirks. It’s a wonder they weren’t all arrested, especially when Cal dropped a club on a bass drum in the middle of the show.

  Somehow the serious business of preparing 85 Squadron for war continued. Someone pinned the name “Flying Foxes” on the squadron and the pilots asked Bishop’s permission to attach foxtails to their wing struts. Bishop decided to make this a privilege of pilots who shot down two enemy planes.

  When Princess Marie Louise heard this, she presented 85 Squadron with a mess-table centrepiece in the form of an inscribed silver fox. In a sense the squadron had royal sponsorship.

  But the Flying Foxes were still far from ready for front-line duty. All the squadron pilots agreed that the Sopwith Dolphins with which they had been equipped were “pigs.” The Dolphins had been designed for high-altitude work, with a 200-horsepower Hispano motor which made it very fast—and very unmanoeuvrable. In addition, it had a feature that was frightening from the pilot’s viewpoint: the top wing had no centre section so the pilot’s head protruded over the wing surfaces. This gave excellent visibility, but in a crash it could be hazardous. In mid-April a young Indian pilot on his first landing in a Dolphin tipped over and broke his neck. Bishop appealed for new planes and the improved S.E. 5A’s were supplied with unusual alacrity—possibly because additional air power was desperately needed at the front.

  A German offensive had starte
d on March 21 and the Allies had been forced to retreat. The attack began along a fifty-mile front between Cambrai and St. Quentin in a drive toward the Maine River and Paris. Lacking adequate reserves, the Fifth Army was nearly annihilated. Thousands of guns had been lost and scores of thousands of prisoners taken. What was left of the battered British contingent retired in disorder toward Amiens. Farther north in the Ypres area a second attack was aimed at the Channel ports of Calais and Boulogne.

  Jack Scott, Bishop’s old 60 Squadron comrade, gave Bishop a first-hand report. He was now based in England, but characteristically he had borrowed a plane and flown out to the front to study the situation.

  “It looks bad, Bish,” he said glumly. “From what I can see there seems to be no question that the Huns will break through.”

  In a special order of the day on April 11, Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig said: “Many among us are tired. To those I would say that victory will belong to the side which holds out the longest. The French Army is moving rapidly in great force to our support. There is no course but to fight it out.”

  During that critical month of April the Royal Air Force had been formed, combining the Royal Flying Corps with the Royal Naval Air Service. This meant that the separate Canadian air force was postponed. The urgent need for more squadrons in France and the consolidation of aerial forces under one control made impractical the proposal to diversify this force by the formation of a separate Canadian section. Even the proposal of two distinctly Canadian squadrons was bluntly refused. Every available man was urgently needed at the front and this was no time for the delay that would come with the organization of a new unit.

  In the midst of all this bad news from the front came a piece of news that should have been regarded as good by the Allied Air Force, yet somehow the death of Baron Manfred von Richthofen caused more sorrow than joy among his bitterest enemies. And it brought with it a controversy that has never been resolved to this day: who killed Richthofen?