Aces High

by Alan Clark

  If one were to nominate the three primary aces of the Royal Flying Corps it would have to be Lanoe Hawker, Albert Ball and ‘Mick’ Mannock. There are many other claimants, certainly – A.P.F.Rhys-Davids, William Bishop, James McCudden, Raymond Collishaw – all made their contributions in their own individual terms and typified a whole strain of pilots that idolized them. But these three were archetypal. Hawker; distinguished, moustachioed, elderly by comparison with the fledglings that followed him; a crack-shot, a classic example of a type that the Great War was to extinguish forever – the chivalrous, Edwardian gentleman of private means. Mannock; Hawker’s very opposite. Of humble birth, burning with social indignation, ruthless in battle, a man who had no time for the horseplay or posturings of the officers’ mess, who refused to attend his enemies’ funerals or drop wreaths or messages over enemy aerodromes, a man who jumped a German flying training school, killed the instructor and had no scruples about pursuing his five pupils in their unwieldy Aviatik trainers and setting light to them one by one. He was killed in 1918, with at least seventy-three victims to his credit, and the lasting reputation as the war’s greatest patrol leader and mentor of novices.

  And Ball; no hero of the First World War combines so strongly those national characteristics which Scott FitzGerald identified in Tender is the Night as the root cause of its incredible ferocity, of why ‘… it could only be fought once in five generations’.

  Ball was a perfect public schoolboy. He had the enthusiasms and all the eager intelligence of that breed. But of course he had joined at eighteen; he had no experience of life, he had no outlet for his affections (he wrote only to his mother, thanking her for cake and provisions in much the same way as he must have done from school), he was in every sense immature. These are the ingredients of a perfect killer, where a smooth transition can be made between the motives that drive a boy to ‘play hard’ at school and then to ‘fight hard’ against the King’s enemies.

  At first Ball was attached to No. 13 Squadron and with them he flew many hundreds of hours on observation before the Battle of the Somme in the elderly and vulnerable BE 2C. But in those days squadrons were not uniform in their equipment and Ball coveted and, whenever possible, showed his prowess in the little single-seater Bristol Scout that was attached to the squadron. He was transferred to No. 11, theoretically an exclusively fighter squadron which by good fortune was being re-equipped with French Nieuports. Ball quickly realized that the Nieuport had such a margin of superiority over all other aircraft at that time that he made a practice of taking on enormous formations of German aeroplanes single-handed, knowing that unless luck was against him he would be able to shoot down at least one German aeroplane while the enemy came to their senses, and thereafter the speed and manœuvrability of the Nieuport would allow him to escape. Throughout June and July 1916, Ball’s score accumulated. Each time he sent a German down in flames he felt, as he put it in his letters ‘… utterly rotten’. But duty was inexorable. Many times his own aeroplane was riddled so badly by machine-gun fire that it had to be scrapped on return. Three times he crashed, once being saved only by a miracle. Statistically, Ball must have known that his life was coming to a close, and that same distant look which haunts the gaze of all those aces who allowed themselves to be photographed late in their career, can be discerned in the photographs of Ball. After his award of the MC and his fourth narrow escape, Ball’s score stood at thirty-two enemy planes. He wrote to his mother: ‘I just feel absolutely through, all in. I am going to ask them for a rest. I don’t think they can refuse me, I have flown a patrol every day this year.’

  Incredibly, the authorities did refuse this request. Worse, Ball was transferred back to No. 13 Squadron where he had to resume the most dangerous task of all, namely flying as a sitting target in BE 2C observer planes. His nerves at breaking point. Ball applied for a transfer back to his old squadron. ‘… that made you see sense, eh?’ said his Corps Commander (who did not fly).

  Ball remained in the line, and survived, for a further three months. Then providentially he was sent back to England, there being assigned to a training school and remaining until February of the following year, when he was appointed Flight Commander in the new, crack Squadron No. 56 that was being formed to take on Richthofen with the SE 5.

  Chapter Six

  Circuses

  I am a hunter. My brother, Lothar, is a butcher. When I have shot down an Englishman my hunting passion is satisfied for a quarter of an hour.

  Manfred von Richthofen

  It was a particularly unfortunate coincidence that the decline of the RAF from exhaustion in the Battle of the Somme coincided with the arrival of the Albatros. Throughout the winter of 1916–17, their numbers multiplied at a frightening rate. After taking into account combat losses and wastage (accident damage, unserviceability) German operational strength, in Albatri alone, had risen from 7 in September, to 78 in November, 270 in January and 305 in March. By May of 1917, it was to stand at 434. A total of thirty-seven separate Jastas of fourteen aircraft each controlled through the Flugmeldedienst or Flight Report Service which liaised by telephone, from the ground troops and observation through to the duty officer, at the Jasta airfields. In June of 1917, the principle of concentration was carried still further when the Germans began to amalgamate Jastas into Jagdgeschwader (JG). For example, Jastas 4, 6, 10 and 11 were amalgamated into JG 1 under Richthofen with instructions ‘to attain air supremacy in sectors of the front as directed’.

  Now the enemy had simultaneously attained superiority in equipment, in numbers (by virtue of his concentration), in skill (the Jasta pilots were all picked) and, resulting from these, in morale.

  The brief period of superiority which the RFC had enjoyed during the early days of the Somme offensive – and which had been largely due to its enormous numerical preponderance and the DH 2 fighter, and to the dash and courage of a few picked groups, notably that led by Hawker – was gone. The skill and bravery of those experienced pilots were useless against the superior speed, armament and rate of climb of the Albatros. Only the Sopwith Triplane could give the Germans a fair fight. And the enemy always avoided the Triplane formations – which was not difficult as they were all grouped in the far North under RNAS command.

  One other aeroplane had a chance. The tiny Sopwith ‘Pup’ could still, on account of its light weight and perfect manœuvrability, get the better of the Albatros at extreme altitudes. Nos. 54 and 46 Squadrons had a song of their own sung to the tune of We’ve Come up From Somerset:

  Oh, we’ve come up from Fifty-four,

  We’re the Sopwith Pups, you know,

  And wherever you beastly Huns may be

  The Sopwith Pups will go.

  And if you want a proper scrap,

  Don’t chase BEs any more,

  For we’ll come up and do the job,

  Because we’re Fifty-four!

  There, at 17,000 feet and over, the pilots gasped for lack of oxygen as they struggled with the controls. It was an unknown land whose towering banks of freezing cloud and bitter temperatures denied entry to any but the bravest in the winter months. The Pup took nearly an hour to climb to its maximum. During that period, or when descending, it was prey to the more powerful German single-seaters whose twin machine-guns had nearly three times of the rate of fire of the Pup’s single Vickers.

  A few minutes later, at 17,000, Scott dived on a group of five (Albatros) D–Vs about 1,000 feet below, and the eight of us might have knocked them into a cocked hat but for one small thing. Fourteen – yes, 14! – more Albatri rushed along and joined in. We learned the number afterwards from Armitage, whose engine cut out in a dive, and who watched them swooping on us as he glided westwards.

  When we dived, I picked out a red-and-grey Hun, and followed him round as he took avoiding action, but kept above him while waiting my chance for a burst. It was a free-for-all as usual, with planes flashing like fireworks, and I was concentrating on getting a bead on my Hun while in a very ti
ght vertical turn, and had just sent in one burst, which went in half-way up his fuselage, when – rak-ak-ak-ak! Tracers spitting past my head. Joystick right back, full right rudder, a twist of a spin, dive and zoom, and suddenly I realised that the sky was crowded with aeroplanes, all Albatroses, all thirsting for our blood.

  I had a maniacal two minutes, skidding to left, to right, diving, zooming, and generally throwing the poor old Pup around like a drunk on skates. I must admit I began to quake, as we didn’t seem to have a hope in hell, but I managed to find a spare second to touch wood, and I also put in a snatch burst whenever a Hun whizzed past my nose. We Pups all lost height quickly, with D-Vs buzzing over and among us like a swarm of wasps, to the tune of a continuous rattle of guns, with tracer criss-crossing all over the sky.

  It was incredible that we escaped, and the main reason was that there were so many of them they got in each other’s way, but somehow it all ended and we weren’t even badly shot about, thanks to the Pups’ amazing manœuvrability. Two of the ‘A’ Flight types were driven down to 300 feet, and had to slither westwards to safety among the tree-tops. Scott and I were also lucky to get away, as he had a gun jam, and my engines started to miss and vibrate badly …

  The Pup needed special skills to get the best out of its manœuvrability. Although McCudden had found that: ‘The Sopwith could out-manœuvre any Albatros no matter how good the German pilot was … when it came to manœuvring, the Sopwith could turn twice to the Albatros’ once.’ There were few pilots of McCudden’s ability. The majority were trained and had experienced only the slow and stable observation aircraft that made up the mass of RFC equipment. Flick-turns, side-stepping, flying (and shooting) inverted, were still an unknown world to the majority of RFC pilots. And during the winter those few who had the experience and courage to force their obsolete aircraft into these attitudes, were gradually worn down by Jastas. Cruickshank, Sanday, Palethorpe, Miller, were gallant officers whose names never entered the role of aces that was a feature of the later years of the war. They perished in out-classed and clumsy aircraft.

  Arrogant in their immunity, the German aces decorated their aircraft in ever more flamboyant colour schemes. It was the last example of the tribal application of war paint – to identify the chiefs and to strike terror in the hearts of the enemy. The lower surfaces of the Albatri were kept sky blue to conceal them while they climbed to dive from the sun, but the fuselage and the tops of the wings were streaked gold, purple, green and adorned with ancient or symbolic hieroglyphs. Karl Allmenröder of Jasta 2 was the first to paint his aircraft completely red; Hermann Goering of Jasta 27 all black with a white tail fin; Ernst Udet gold with yellow spinner; Bruno Lörzer gold with a black tail and a white spinner. Other pilots adorned their engine cowlings with hideous faces or printed their names in enormous letters on the upper wing surfaces so that their opponents should remember and quail. Kempf of Jasta 12 emphasized his by printing under his name ‘Kennscht mi noch?’ (‘Do you not remember me?’).

  Now throughout the RFC a general decline in flying standards and tactics set in. The effects were felt all the way back to the training schools where pupils were often rushed through without a proper grounding in order that they should fill the depleted ranks of the squadrons in France. Many of the replacements sent to squadrons in the spring of 1917 arrived with less than twenty hours solo flying in their log books and often with only two or three hours on the type of aircraft which they were expected to fly in combat. Many too had contrived to get through their passing-out test without executing the more difficult of the basic manœuvres – like the right turn (when the response of the controls was severely affected by the flywheel effect of the rotating engine components and the airscrew). They were prone to such beginners’ errors as letting the machine’s nose fall during a turn or allowing the airspeed to sink to stalling point in a climb.

  Squadron commanders testing the new recruits in mock combat as they arrived were horrified to find that they would even forget the transition of rudder to aileron effect in a steep bank. In these mock combats, staged deep behind the lines in the long spring evenings, the recruits would sometimes spin out of control and crash to their death without even having heard their guns fired in anger.

  As the days of 1917 lengthened, the Germans with their stricter training schedules and the rigid flying discipline of their tightly knit formations increased their dominance of the air space over the whole length of the British sector. German tactics also were more sophisticated. The British were tied to the requirements of Corps and Army HQ. The Army Staff persisted in seeing the Flying Corps as an adjunct of their own intelligence and artillery branches, and where bombers or reconnaissance flights failed to achieve the objectives set them, their escorts were blamed. Thus the British fighter strength was tied to providing cumbersome escorts flying on slow and steady courses at medium altitude while the German Circuses were able to roam free in stepped-up tiers reaching to 15,000 feet.

  But to use the word ‘fighter’ in any description of RFC equipment in 1916–17 was a misnomer. The fast single-seater ‘scout’, of which the Albatros was the prime example but which had its counterparts in the RNAS Pups and Triplanes, was a design-concept not wholly appreciated by the RFC Staff. The RFC ‘brass’ still regarded the proper role of the flying machine as that of an extension of cavalry reconnaissance which, like a cavalry squadron, should have the ability to raid or defend itself, but whose raison d’être was collecting information. For this purpose what was required – namely a stable, two-man aircraft which could be flown ‘hands off’ while the crew examined the ground, wrote notes, drew maps and leaned over the side to change plates in the mahogany box-camera – was the antithesis of what was needed to contest for mastery of the skies in close combat.

  The Superintendent at Farnborough (Mervyn O’Gorman) was, like so many energetic Civil Servants, an ambitious Empire builder. Not only did he confine the work of the drawing offices strictly to this obsolete concept of design, but he was also at pains to ensure by the placing of contracts and other means, that no other aspirant manufacturer could produce a design – still less an aeroplane – whose merits might rival or eclipse those of the Royal Aircraft Factory. Fortunately, the chaotic state of this new industry, together with the vigour and long sightedness of the Admiralty and its First Lord, Winston Churchill, did allow, in these early years, firms such as Short, Sopwith, Bristol and De Havilland, to survive and produce rival designs. None the less, O’Gorman was tenacious in his hostility, doing his best to restrict the output of rivals through the Supply Directorate (which was answerable to him) and, wherever possible, recommending against their adoption for squadron service.

  Now, in February of 1917, the ‘new’ aircraft product of the Royal Aircraft Factory’s design staff was about to enter service. This was the RE 8, an ugly and perverse aircraft that came to be so hated by its pilots that they would deliberately try and ‘crack them up’ on landing or delivery, even though this meant further long spells with worn out and obsolete equipment.

  The RE 8 embodied practically every major body design fault which had already been identified and for which the cure was known. The fin area was small and had to undergo successive modifications in service to make it safe; and the undercarriage was set too far back relative to the aircraft’s centre of gravity and it was easy to ‘put the nose in’ when landing on rough ground – with highly disagreeable consequences; and the placing of the large air scoop just above the engine severely curtailed the pilot’s forward view and gave the machine dangerous stalling characteristics.

  Another design, a bomber, from the private De Havilland concern, the DH 4, was going into service at almost the same moment and yet another two-seater, the Bristol Fighter, was on the way. But the DH 4 had been designed round a Rolls-Royce engine and demand for this superb engine was so high that the De Havilland airframes had to be fitted with an engine designed by the Royal Aircraft Factory. This had a lower power output and had been rushed in
to production by O’Gorman in its original form (in spite of the engineer staff recommending some fifty-seven different modifications to such major items as pistons and valve gear).

  With the first deliveries of the RE 8 in France, its evil reputation, magnified by disappointment among crews who had pinned their hopes on its arrival, spread rapidly through the RFC: 52 Squadron, relative novices, were the first to receive the aeroplane and promptly lost four of their pilots from uncontrollable spins set off by the minimal fin area. Morale sank so low that an exchange was ordered between 52 and 34 (a more experienced squadron still flying the BE 2Es). Soon another unpleasant characteristic of the RE 8 emerged:

  When a bad landing threw an aircraft on to its nose, there was almost a certainty of fire. The engine was pushed back into the emergency and petrol tanks so that the whole of the spirit flowed over the engine, and in the fires which resulted, many pilots and observers perished.

  The C.O. of 34 Squadron issued some ‘notes for the guidance of pilots’ and their text has survived:

  The chief thing to remember is that the machine gives very little indication of losing its speed until it suddenly shows an uncontrollable tendency to dive which cannot be corrected in time if you are near the ground.