Aces High

by Alan Clark

  Production orders followed at once with only minor modifications to fuselage lengths and fin. Nine weeks later the first allocations were made to Jagdgeschwader 1, and word began to spread of the new Fokker’s outstanding qualities.

  Rudolph Stark of Jasta 35 told how:

  Six Fokkers … great rejoicing throughout the Staffel. An Albatros, two Pfalz and three Rolands are wheeled out for exchange. Now comes the burning question, who is to fly the new machines – I decide the last to join the Staffel must be the ones to wait. I report to the Technical Officer who presents the necessary documents to make us the happy owners of six Fokkers which are waiting in the hangar. I climb into the cockpit which wears an unfamiliar aspect; the engine roars; the ground rushes away from under me. Swiftly we rise. The machines climb wonderfully and answer to the slightest movement of the controls. We land and put our treasures safely away in the hangars. The painter marks them with the Staffel badge, the arrowhead on the wings, then paints the fuselages with the coloured bands that identify the individual pilots. He takes particular care with my machine embellishing my lilac stripe with narrow black edges. Only then do the machines really belong to us.

  It was not long before that stark, square-rigged outline became an object of foreboding to the RFC. Cases of turning away and avoiding combat, of ‘suspected engine failure’ or ‘guns jamming’ came to be recorded with increased frequency as they had in the first days of the Albatros.

  We got into a dogfight this morning with the new brand of Fokkers and they certainly were good. They had big red stripes on the fuselage diagonally so they must have been von Richthofen’s old Circus. There were five of us and we ran into five Fokkers at 15,000 feet. We both started climbing of course – and they out-climbed us. We climbed up to 20,500 feet and couldn’t get any higher. We were practically stalled and these Fokkers went right over our heads and got between us and the lines. They didn’t want to dogfight, but tried to pick off our rear men. Inglis and Cal were getting a pretty good thrill when we turned back and caught one Hun napping. He half rolled slowly and we got on his tail. Gosh, its unpleasant fighting at that altitude. The slightest movement exhausts you.

  Your engine has no pep and splutters; it’s hard to keep a decent formation, and you lose 500 feet on a turn. The Huns came in from above and it didn’t take us long to fight down to 12,000 feet. We put up the best fight of our lives, but these Huns were just too good for us. Cal got a shot in his radiator and went down and Webster had his tailplane shot to bits and his elevator control shot away. He managed to land with his stabiliser wheel, but cracked up. I don’t know what would have happened if some Dolphins from 84 hadn’t come up and the Huns beat it. I think we got one that went down in a spin while Cal was shooting at it, but we couldn’t see it crash. I got to circling with one Hun, just he and I, and it didn’t take me long to find out that I wasn’t going to climb above this one. He began to gain on me and then did something I’ve never heard of before. He’d been circling with me and he’d pull around and point his nose at me and open fire and just hang there on his prop and follow me around with his tracer. All I could do was keep on turning the best I could. If I’d straightened out he’d have had me cold as he already had his sights on me. If I tried to hang on my prop that way, I’d have gone right into a spin. But this fellow just hung right there and sprayed me with lead like he had a hose. All I could do was to watch his tracer and kick my rudder from one side to the other to throw his aim off. This war isn’t what it used to be. (Account by Lieutenant John M. Grider.)

  But if their equipment had been up-graded, the human element in the Jastas was now in decline. Frankenberg, returning from his second convalescence after wounding, found ‘… deep changes in the Staffel, like an ancient tapestry which has been darned and patched until, though it hangs in the same pattern, few fragments of the original cloth can be recognized’.

  Their bravery was unquestioned, but bitterness and cynicism multiplied as the fighting front contracted and the pressure of the Allies continued without cease. Richthofen had died on 21 April 1918, shot down by a Canadian, Captain A.R. Brown of 208 Squadron, flying a Sopwith Camel. The roll of those who succeeded him as Commander of the Jagdgeschwader rang with the names of aces – Wilhelm Reinhard, Erich Loewenhardt and Hermann Goering. Their life expectancy was measured in days. The Circuses still daubed their old warpaint (after Richthofen’s death JG 2 switched from red to royal blue fuselages and these were boldly emblazoned – lightning for Graven, an arrow for Kurt Wolff, skull and crossbones for Georg von Hantelmann, a branding iron for Oliver, Frieherr von Beaulieu-Marconnay). But used again and again, driven to the point of exhaustion, the Circuses now fought without either mercy or hope.

  It is fitting to close these accounts with the epic story of the last flight of Major William Barker who had survived in the Royal Flying Corps since 1915, when he had transferred from the machine-gun section of the Canadian Mounted Rifles. Barker had served on the ground in the Battle of Ypres when the Germans had used poison gas for the first time on the Western Front and the Canadian soldiers held the breach when the French ran away, by standing on the parapet of their trench line (where the gas was thinnest) with no more protection over their mouths than handkerchiefs dipped in a solution of chlorate and water. Barker’s first post was as observer in a BE 2C, and here his skill and accuracy with a machine-gun quickly proved their worth and he shot down an Albatros on his fourth flight. He was then sent for training as a pilot and again showed exceptional aptitude, soloing after only fifty-five minutes of dual instruction.

  Barker’s first charge was the dangerous and unwieldy RE 8 and he was nearly killed standing one on its nose after making a damaged landing. Transferred to Camels he brought his score up to nine aircraft before being posted back to England as an instructor, but with the collapse of the Italian front at Caporetto there was an urgent need for British reinforcements and the flying schools were gleaned for volunteers to accompany the expeditionary army. Barker stayed in Italy until the end of the summer, by which time the war in that theatre had effectively ended, and then returned to the Flying Combat School at Hounslow, to which he had been appointed Commander.

  But although the war in Italy was over and the Western Front now saw the German army in decline, the enemy air force remained extremely formidable. In all-round terms the new Fokker D VII was the best fighter in the sky. The German Air Force though smaller in terms of general quality was still superior to that of the Allies. It is probably also true that human material recruited into the RFC was below the standards of 1915 and 1916 just as was the case in the army itself, and the casualty figures remained disturbing. Using this excuse, but doubtless from a private nostalgia for the thrills of combat, Barker arranged to become temporarily attached to 201 Squadron. Although 201 was equipped with Camels, Barker himself brought out the latest fighter, the Sopwith Snipe, which was intended to out-perform the Fokker D VII.

  For the first three weeks of October, Barker served with 201 Squadron, sometimes sortie-ing in their company and sometimes flying as a lone wolf, and in this period he brought his total score up to forty-six planes. But on 26 October he was ordered home, taking-off the following day with his tanks full for the flight to England.

  After about twenty minutes’ flying time, Barker noticed a Rumpler two-seater at 2,000 feet to his north-end and diverted from his homeward course to intercept it. He had been lured, as so many of the aces ultimately were, by the prospect of one more vulnerable two-seater to add to his score. And, just as in their cases, Barker allowed his concentration to be deflected for seconds too long. As he followed the shattered Rumpler down to its death, Barker suddenly felt himself under fire, and simultaneously an incendiary bullet practically severed his right thigh, smashing the bone. Giving full left rudder (excruciating pain prevented him using the right pedal, he was thus limited to turning to one side only) Barker banked round and found himself flying head-on into the full strength of Jagdgeschwader 3 whose four Jastas (
Nos. 2, 26, 27, and 36) were in stepped-up formation from 8,000 feet – in all some sixty Fokkers, all D VIIs!

  There could be no escape. For an instant Barker’s audacity in flying straight through them seems to have surprised the Germans; he succeeded in shooting down the plane which had first attacked him, and latched on to the tail of another which exploded in flames after the second burst. But once the Germans had satisfied themselves that there were no other English aircraft in sight and that Barker was truly alone, they fell into an attack technique which could only have one end; they took it in turns to attack him from different sides in clusters of five with one above and one below so that each time the Snipe evaded, it would offer a target either in a loop or a dive. After a few minutes during which time his aircraft was hit by over three hundred bullets, Barker was wounded again, this time in the left leg, so that he was almost incapable of operating the rudder controls and had to manœuvre the aircraft on the joystick and throttle alone. He had now lost so much blood from the original wound in his right thigh that he fainted and the Snipe went into a spin. However, the rush of air and unfamiliar gyrating motion must have revived Barker for after falling some 6,000 feet, he instinctively pulled the Snipe out of the spin, although there could be no escape from his pursuers who were following him down and whose numbers had indeed been increased by the lowest of the four Jastas (No. 27) which had been flying at 8,000 feet.

  Barker had now given up any thought of coming out of the fight alive, and half delirious with pain and loss of blood would try and ram his enemies when they came close enough. The Snipe still had some ammunition in its guns and Barker managed to shoot down one more Fokker before his left elbow was shattered and he became unconscious for the second time. Again the crazy spin which followed made it difficult for the Fokkers both to follow him down and shoot straight. Miraculously, and almost at ground level, Barker managed to straighten out for the last time. He was now only intermittently conscious and without control through any limb except his right wrist. Still travelling at almost maximum speed Barker tried to put the Snipe down in a field behind the British trench line. It hit the turf at 90 m.p.h, tore off its undercarriage, slid and bounced, shedding fabric and spars for two hundred yards and then turned over. Providentially, it did not catch fire, and the Highland Light Infantry who pulled Barker from the wreckage were astonished to find that his heart was still beating although the cockpit was awash with blood and both legs were held on by sinew alone.

  Barker was unconscious for ten days but ultimately recovered the full use of his limbs in time to attend the parade at which he was awarded the Victoria Cross by the King. With the exception of Mannock’s slaughter of the Aviatik Training flight in 1917, Barker’s performance had produced the highest score (four aircraft) in the shortest time (forty minutes) of any contest in the First World War. It was an act of incredible heroism and a fitting finale to the war in the air which came to an end twelve days later.

  With what were the flyers left? Memories and nostalgia of an extraordinary power, that could never be deleted; a special bond that united all, even friend and foe, who had flown without a parachute, with the dive-wind on their cheeks, to the harsh rattle of machine-gun fire.

  Some of those who survived went on to achieve eminence in the Second World War. Arthur Gould Lee and Norman MacMillan, both of whose memoirs have been quoted in this book, held high positions; Ernst Udet became chief of the technical office of the Luftwaffe where he was responsible for developing the dive-bomber and (ironically) retarding the jet fighter; Goering rose to be the second most powerful man in Germany under Hitler. The summer of 1918 took a grievous toll of the old aces. Wolff died in Richthofen’s own plane. Mannock was lured to his death by an apparently defenceless two-seater. McCudden, whose elder brother had been killed in May 1915, and his younger brother in March 1918, was himself killed in a take-off crash a few weeks before the Armistice. Lothar von Richthofen survived the war but was killed in a civilian aircraft at Fuhlsbüttel in 1922. ‘Moritz’ had been bequeathed by Richthofen to Gestenberg, who looked after the dog, and after the war he survived in Holland to a ripe old age.

  Civilian accidents claimed many among those adventurous spirits who could not settle down but followed their calling in worn-out and unserviceable aircraft, stunting and mail-flying in remote parts of the world. William Barker’s ninth life came up, and was forfeit in a take-off accident at Ottawa in 1930, twelve years after his single-handed duel with the Circus. Jean Navarre, taken out of a mental home to participate in a French victory parade, killed himself practising for a display where he intended to fly through the Arc de Triomphe. Cecil Lewis went as far as China, but the charmed life which had protected him since 1915 continued to do so and he survived to ferry Spitfires in the Second World War, leaving us one sentence that epitomizes all those memories and evocations that conjure up the bitter romance of dog fighting:

  The way the earth looked, falling; swallowing to stop deafness at altitude; the scream of wires; stars between wings; grass blown down when engines were run up; the smell – of dope, and castor oil, and varnish in new cockpits; moonlight shining on struts; the gasps before the dive; machine-guns.

  Appendix 1

  Comparative weights and performance of leading combat aircraft of the First World War

  Appendix 2

  Comparative chart showing when leading combat aircraft were in operation during the First World War

  1So wrote one of the survivors, Arthur Gould Lee, who subsequently rose to the rank of Air Vice Marshal – yet it took thirty years before he could bring himself to commit this view to paper. So deep-seated was the obsession that no mention of it can be found in any of the contemporary published accounts (although privately, in diaries and letters, it is found in profusion).

  1The Camel eventually became the most successful fighter of the war, Camel pilots shooting down 1,294 enemy machines. It was the first British fighter to have twin Vickers guns, and it was the hump made by the cowling over their breeches that led to the nickname of Camel, which became so prevalent that it was adopted as the machine’s official name. All the major weight components were gathered into the forward seven feet of the fuselage, which gave the Camel a remarkable agility, as the moments of inertia were so small. But this, combined with the torque of its rotary engine, gave the Camel its most famous quality – the ability to turn to the right in only half the time it took other fighters. Delivery began in July 1917 and ended after 5,490 had been built.

  2The exact manner of his death is still a mystery, as with so many other aces of the war. He was last seen diving after an Albatros. Some days later the Germans claimed that he had been shot down by the brother of Manfred von Richthofen, Lothar, who had a meteoric career at the front shooting down four Allied aircraft. But on that day, Lothar claimed a Triplane, and was supported by several of his comrades.

  1The initial title of Escadrille Americaine was dropped following German pressure exercised through isolationist circles in the – at this time allegedly neutral – United States. The French then designated it by the simple code number N (Nieuport) 124. Claude Genet then had the idea of fixing on the name of ‘Lafayette’ and this title stayed with the unit until 18 February 1918, when it was officially incorporated into the United States air arm.

  2It is possible that this practice came from some of the French Escadrilles where it had originated with the French ace, Jean Navarre, who flew in winter time with a girl’s stocking actually pulled over his head as a protection against the cold.

  1Dating from the earliest period when observation was regarded as the primary role of the Air Arm, the destruction of a balloon was classified as a ‘victory’ and allowed to stand in a pilot’s score sheet, and this was never altered. For though a balloon could not evade gunfire in a way an aircraft could, it was by way of compensation very well defended from the ground – a measure of its importance. ‘Balloon-busting’ was an extremely hazardous business, and attracted its own extraordinary ac
es, such as Heinrich Gontermann of Germany (18 balloons), Willy Coppens of Belgium (28), Frank Luke of the United States (15) and Michel Coiffard of France (28).

  2Although it is widely believed that the stork was adopted as the mascot of the Cigognes Escadrille because of their Hispano engines, in fact the reverse is true. The stork was the group mascot even when they were flying Nieuports with Le Rhone engines and was retained after the switch to Hispano-engined Spads. After the war, when Hispano-Suiza were marketing motor-cars, they adopted the stork as their trade mascot.

  This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader

  Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP

  Copyright © Alan Clark 1973

  First published by George Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 1973

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  ISBN: 9781448200191

  eISBN: 9781448201518

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