by Alan Clark
Often it was the case that pilots who were the least skilful or intrepid were hardest on their engines. Long pursuit dives after an escaping foe would allow engine revolutions to build up over the safety limit, ultimately with critical results – overheating, damage to valves and pistons and sometimes total failure. Few early aircraft were fitted with more than a fuel supply gauge and an oil pressure indicator. Pilots had to rely on their own sensibilities, ears, nostrils and ‘feel’ to tell them of the engine’s health. Some of them, of course, were grounded in mechanics. They were fascinated by the internal combustion engine and responded naturally to its vagaries. But for all those young cavalry officers who joined the Flying Corps in preference to a dismounted posting to the trenches, oil temperature, compression ratios, valve overlap and such terms were pure double-dutch and best left to the ‘troops’ (as the mechanics were called).
During this period squadron equipment was not uniform, but each unit was a hotchpotch of different types of aircraft suited (if the word is not too ironic) to different tasks. In the squadron the most glamorous and desirable were the single-seater Scouts, now beginning to make their appearance. In due course No. 6 Squadron, where in 1914 one of the earliest experiments in mounting a machine-gun on an aeroplane (a Farman) had been tried by Lieutenant Louis Strange, received its first single-seater, a Martinsyde Scout. Major Gordon Shepherd, the Commanding Officer, acceded to Strange’s fervent plea that he should be allowed to fly the plane.
Strange was an experienced pilot (and, as will be seen, a very brave man also) and he soon found that the Martinsyde had a combination of several vices which, although individually often found in aircraft of this period, were usually accompanied by some compensating virtues. It was slow, unstable and yet lethargic in its response to the controls – in other words the very opposite of what was required in combat against other aircraft. Its only virtue was that it mounted a forward-firing Lewis gun on a fixed mounting above the upper wing.
Undeterred by the Martinsyde’s tricky handling, Strange headed due east and was soon well inside enemy territory. After some time he spotted his prey, an Aviatik flying above and to the north of him. But to close with his enemy took an age. The weight and drag of the Lewis gun cut the Martinsyde’s speed to less than 60 m.p.h. in its shallow climb. When the observer of the Aviatik alerted his pilot it too struggled to gain altitude. Soon Strange found that his adversary was drawing away from him. The Martinsyde had reached its ceiling and could climb no more. Drawing the joystick back, Strange lifted the machine’s nose and fired a long deflecting burst at the enemy, emptying the Lewis gun. Serenely the Aviatik flew on.
Strange was angry, and disappointed; now he began to feel afraid also. The chase had led him far behind the enemy lines; it had brought home to him how useless was the Martinsyde in combat; the magazine of the Lewis gun was empty and he was effectively defenceless. Strange put up one hand to unclip the magazine so that he could reload. He was now in a gentle dive back towards the front line twenty miles to the west, with an air speed of some 75 m.p.h., and could expect to be over friendly territory in a quarter of an hour. But the drum was stuck and the pressure of the wind made it very difficult for Strange to grip it firmly with his gloved hand. He throttled right back and lifted the nose to reduce air speed. Still the empty drum remained obstinately stuck to the breech. Strange removed his gloves, then stood up in the cockpit cursing with all his might and straining with both hands to twist the magazine against its spring-load.
But now the Martinsyde, which had slowed almost to stalling speed, performed one of its most objectionable antics. The port wing dropped sharply. Strange lost his balance and fell against the joystick, giving instant full left flap, which exaggerated the aeroplane’s spontaneous manœuvre and turned the machine upside down. In the space of two seconds Strange found that he was hanging like a trapeze artiste with both hands still on the magazine of the Lewis gun while the Martinsyde flew hesitantly above him in an inverted position. Now his curses that the drum should free itself changed to prayers that it should hold. The thread (only one and a half circuits of 360 degrees) had crossed. All that was holding Strange’s weight of 150 lbs was a mm. width of low tensile steel that surrounded the magazine attachment. If this broke or if the drum freed itself, as he had been trying so hard to make it do for the last ten minutes. Strange would have fallen, still clutching the empty magazine, some 9,000 feet to his death. By an incredible feat of physical prowess – which involved putting even greater strain on the jammed magazine – Strange hauled himself up the distance of his elbows and started a series of desperate swings, any one of which might have dislodged the drum, to try and hook his legs inside the upper (now the lower) wing of the Martinsyde. At the third attempt he succeeded in doing this, but his violent shifting of weight and the slowly declining air-speed had caused the Martinsyde to go into a spin.
At this early stage in the techniques of aerobatics the spin was regarded as virtually incurable – as a long but inevitable prelude to certain death. For Strange it was particularly and immediately objectionable in that while he was trying to haul himself back into the cockpit against the force of gravity, he had also to fight against the horrible giddiness which builds up in the spin and which was, of course, aggravated by the fact that he was upside down.
By now the Martinsyde had lost some 7,000 feet of its original altitude of 9,000 feet. How Strange managed to hook his feet back into the rudder controls remains incredible – still more how in the remaining 1,500 feet or so he managed to correct the spin and right the aircraft, a feat little short of miraculous. In a very shaken condition he flew the Martinsyde back to the aerodrome at tree-top level, and on landing was charged by the Commanding Officer with causing ‘unnecessary damage’ to the instruments and seat (by kicking them with his feet while trying to climb back into the cockpit).
Part Two
The Weapons are Forged
Background 1915–16
The winter of 1915–16 was the ‘Fokker Scourge’. It began when Fokker, in the summer of 1915, delivered his Eindekker with its single Parabellum machine-gun mounted on the cowling. No Allied aircraft could stand up to the Eindekker because of its fire-power. The aeroplane itself was structurally weak and possessed of an indifferent performance as it was, even in the E III mark, underpowered. But, luckily for the Allies, the Germans issued it in ones and twos to reconnaissance and other squadrons much as the British issued Scouts. Had the Germans formed homogeneous units of the E types in 1915–16, they must surely have driven the air forces of the Allies from the skies.
This is not to say, though, that some enterprising individuals had not made the attempt to gather together enough to make a particularly devastating weapon. In the late summer of 1915, an officer in the Bavarian Air Force, which was partially independent of the rest of the German Air Force, made such an attempt and formed three Kampfeinsitzerkommando, or single-seat fighter units. Two of the pilots in the second of these were Oswald Boelcke and Max Immelmann. These two were portrayed as rivals in the German press, and though they may have been so, Boelcke’s importance was far greater than Immelmann’s. For while Immelmann’s greatness lay in being one of the first fighter aces, that was his only achievement, as he was killed after scoring fifteen victories. Boelcke, however, achieved forty victories, but much more than that, he was the father of aerial warfare. He taught, developed tactics and in every way laid the foundation of the science of aerial fighting.
The place where Boelcke and Immelmann rose to fame was Verdun, where the Germans were trying ‘to bleed the French army to death’. Inadvertently, they produced the world’s first large scale fighter unit – on the French side. This was the Cigognes, the elite French fighter force of the First World War. In the early summer of 1916 they were equipped with the little Nieuport II Bébé fighter, whose Lewis gun, firing over the top wing, went part of the way to wresting control of the air from the Fokkers. It was soon joined by the Spad VII, which had a synchronized Vic
kers gun, and the combination soon wrested superiority from the Germans over the southern part of the Western Front.
To the north, the British were also making headway against German air power. Even at the height of the Fokker Scourge, Trenchard had insisted on sending out as many aircraft as possible on offensive patrols, and this proved enormously expensive in lives and machines. The tactics have been severally criticized, as the machines were decidedly inferior to their German counterparts, and the pilots, a large percentage of them straight from flying school with no combat experience, were unable to cope with the radical change of tactics needed to cope with the E series. Those who did not come back had become ‘Fokker Fodder’. On 27 February 1916, however, No. 24 Squadron arrived in France. It was equipped with the first British single-seat fighter, the De Havilland 2, and was under the command of the third airman to win a Victoria Cross, Major Lanoe G. Hawker. The DH 2 was a pusher, as Britain still had no synchronizing gear, but it was agile, and so more than a match for the Fokker. The tide was beginning to turn. Fighting alongside the DH 2 was the cumbersome but immensely strong FE 2, which also proved itself capable of dealing with the Fokker. And from May the French started supplying Britain with the Nieuport II, when they could afford to let their Allies have them.
With the arrival of these new fighters, the RFC started to develop offensive tactics as a means of defending two-seat reconnaissance machines, which were still a very ineffectual breed on the Allied side. For example, early in February before No. 24 Squadron had become operational, a BE 2C on a reconnaissance sortie had had to receive an escort of no less than twelve other machines. RFC doctrine still stated that fighters should defend general purpose machines from a position of close escort, but enterprising pilots realized that it was more efficient to go and ‘look for the enemy than wait for him to find you’. Thus were born the offensive fighter tactics that took the Allies over the German lines during the rest of the war. Even when the tide was running against it, the RFC was to be found on the east of the lines.
As the year progressed, moreover, the superiority which the Allies now enjoyed was further enhanced by even better machines. On the British side, the excellent Sopwith 1 ‘Strutter’ two-seat fighter I reconnaissance machine, equipped with a synchronized Vickers for the pilot and a Lewis for the observer appeared early in the year, easily the best two-seater on either side so far. It was joined in September by the delightful Sopwith Pup, a scaled-down single ‘pup’ of the 1 Strutter. And the French supplemented the Bébés of their Escadrilles de Chasse with an updated version, the Nieuport 17, from March onwards.
The Germans were also developing new types, notably the Halberstadt D series in autumn 1915 and spring 1916, the Fokker D I in the summer and the Albatros D I and II with its new twin gun armament, in the autumn. With the last, Germany again began to gain the ascendancy over the Western Front.
Not only German machines, but also German organization and tactics had undergone changes in the summer and autumn of 1916. First of all, the lessons of the Kampfeinsitzerkommando had been digested. Then, in August, a new tactical fighter unit of fourteen aircraft, the Jagdstaffel (Jasta) or fighter squadron, was introduced. Boelcke had long been in favour of this, and he was given command of the first one to be formed, Jasta 2. This became operational in September 1916 and, by April 1917, thirty-seven had been formed. But on 28 October 1916, Boelcke himself, the father and mentor of the idea was killed in an air accident, when he collided with another member of his Jasta, which was later renamed Jasta Boelcke in his honour. Boelcke’s lessons had been well learnt, however, as the original members of his Jasta 2 were soon commanding successful Jastas of their own. One of these was the youthful Manfred von Richthofen, who commanded Jasta 11.
Another event of importance for the German effort in the air was the establishment of the Deutschen Luftstreitkrafte or German Air Force. This was set up on 8 October 1916, and its first commander or Kogenluft was General Ernst von Hoeppner, with Hermann Thomsen, now a colonel, as chief-of-staff and Wilhelm Siegert as Idflieg. Returning to the tactical aspect of the German reorganization, it is worth noting that an event overshadowed by the arrival of the Fokker, but hardly less important, was the development of German infantry support tactics, or contact patrols. In the absence of any type of ‘walkie talkie’ radio in the First World War, divisional corps and army commanders found it very difficult to keep track of the position of their forward troops during an attack, and consequently also in gun-laying or any form of support by other ground troops or artillery. Thus aircraft came to be used for the task of establishing contact with forward units, as in the Battle of Verdun. An elaborate system of visual codes was arranged, and each division had its Fliegerabteilung Infanterie (F1. Abt. – Inf.). At first, ordinary C class machines such as the DFW C V and L VG C II were used, but their extreme vulnerability to ground fire soon led to armour plate being fitted around the engine, fuel tanks and crew compartment, while proper armoured contact patrol aircraft (the J class) were designed. The idea was soon copied by the Allies.
The scene was now set for the next major development in aerial fighting. The Fokker Scourge had risen and eventually been beaten, and while the new generation of Allied fighters, the SE 5, Sopwith Camel and Spad XIII, was being developed, the Germans put the sleek, shark-like Albatros D I and II into service, and were about to introduce the even better D III ‘Vee-Strutter’, which was to bring about the decimation of the RFC during ‘Bloody April’.
Chapter Two
Machines
Take the cylinder out of my kidneys,
The connecting rod out of my brain, my brain,
From the small of my back take the camshaft
And assemble the engine again.
RFC Mess Song
In those days designers were still inhibited by the development of the engines that drove their craft. The majority looked upon their product as a sailplane with its own motive power, rather than as a projectile containing a man and a gun. An aeroplane is by definition something heavier than air. The designers were at pains to keep this disparity as low as possible, and the results were two-fold: while the human body is so constructed that it cannot sustain fatal injury in a collision at any speed up to the maximum of which it is capable under its own motive power, this was very far from the case with the early aircraft. Of course they could never be expected to resist collision with other objects, but they did not even have the strength to hold together under the maximum stresses which a skilled pilot could impose upon them in the air. Long dives would strip the fabric from the wing surfaces; tail planes would shear in a zoom or too tight a turn. Undercarriage gear would snap on contact with the ground if the angle of approach were misjudged.
But as compensation for these failings, the aeroplanes did possess a delightful buoyancy. Their take-off and landing from rough and sloping grass fields were, by today’s standards, quite incredible. They could glide a considerable distance if starting from some altitude and this saved many lives; for although the engines were unreliable the majority of pilots became proficient at handling their aeroplane down to the nearest grass patch in a ‘dead-stick’ condition. Often at the end of a day’s mission, pilots would turn off the engine at a great height after crossing their lines and guide the aeroplane down, gently losing height through the evening sunlight with only the sound of wind in spars and rigging.
In terms of military technology, the evolution of the machines passed through four distinct stages, and with each development complete ascendancy passed to whichever side had anticipated it.
At first the aeroplane was used solely for intelligence ‘Scouts’ – a description which later indicated what were, strictly speaking, single-seat fighters. The aeroplanes were in most cases unarmed and if by chance they should meet in the sky they would ignore each other. Their enemies were the weather, the imperfect skill of the pilots, and their own structural weaknesses, and, a long way behind these three, occasional bursts of inaccurate groundfire from
hostile (or friendly) soldiers.
But very quickly the ingenuity and enthusiasm of the pilots began to extend the role of the aeroplane into the second stage of its evolution. The crews would take up revolvers or stalking rifles and take pot-shots either at hostile aircraft or at enemy soldiers on the ground. Some of them would take up hand grenades or eighteen-pounder shells fitted with makeshift fins and when they had crossed the enemy lines they would lean over the side of the aeroplane and drop the missiles by hand. It was only a matter of time before machine-guns began to find their way into aeroplanes, though initially only as the observer’s weapon on two-seaters.
But the machine-gun was a heavy weapon and it consumed a lot of ammunition. Moreover, its field of fire was severely restricted by the structural outline of the aeroplane itself, particularly by the airscrew which, in front-engined aeroplanes, made it impossible to use a machine-gun except in the three-quarter rear field. Plainly the first designer who could combine a forward-firing machine-gun and a high speed single-seater aircraft, would enable the squadrons thus equipped to establish an immediate superiority over the more unwieldy two-seaters with their restricted fire.
