The First Great Air War

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  Henderson offered him little hope but promised to do what he could. Four days later, at six in the evening, Baring had a note from Henderson telling him to report to the War Office the following morning, prepared to accompany him to France. The casual abruptness of this summons, the instant transformation of a middle-aged aesthete of inveterate civilian habit into a military officer convincing enough to play the part of Commanding General’s amanuensis, is breathtaking. But such strange reversals of role and revelations of hidden facets of character are not uncommon in wartime. Perhaps it is one of the qualities of a natural leader that he can discern the potential of an eager amateur and rate him “for the duration” equal to the professionals.

  Early next day, a Sunday, Baring was appointed a lieutenant in the Intelligence Corps and attached to RFC Headquarters. In the expectation of obtaining some sort of military employment, he had already bought “some khaki on which it was only necessary to put badges of rank in order to make it into a kind of uniform”. This garb presumably consisted of a tunic and breeches; and, one supposes, a headdress. A pantomimic scene ensued when he donned these garments: “Six people endeavoured to put on my puttees. None were successful except finally in the evening, Sir David Henderson.” Further evidence of the Brigadier’s informality, this evokes a hilarious mental picture of the woebegone bedraggled pseudo-subaltern being dressed by his Commander-in-Chief while the baffled and apparently bungling captains and majors look on.

  At nine that night Major Salmond called for Baring and they were driven to Farnborough, where they slept in a billiards room crowded with officers, at the Queen’s Hotel. No time-wasting, he was pitched in at the deep end.

  The morning brought a fresh confrontation with his puttees. He rose at five-thirty to wind them on; so tightly that he could hardly walk. Then to Farnborough station to take a train to Redhill, his companions, Salmond and Longcroft, talking mystifyingly about “bumps, pancakes, stalling and taxiing”, exactly as airmen today would bewilder laymen with such technicalities as flame-outs, Derry turns, after-burners and bunts. Arrived at Newhaven, they found that they had to stay overnight before sailing for Boulogne: so, at Longcroft’s suggestion, and in spite of Baring’s trepidation about further struggles with his puttees, they “bathed in the dazzling sea”. That night they slept in a railway carriage. Next morning there was discussion about whether the new officer was a lieutenant or second lieutenant. The former was decided upon and he duly went to a tailor on the pier to have his badges of rank sewn on.

  They arrived at Amiens in time to spend a night in their bedding rolls on the grass of the aerodrome and to splash in their portable canvas baths next morning to the plaudits of spectators, before Lieutenant Harvey-Kelly and the rest touched down.

  The French Air Service, meanwhile, had not only been reconnoitring but had also, on 14th August, bombed the German airship sheds at Metz. The Germans, in their turn, were already penetrating as deeply as 200 miles into France on reconnaissance.

  *

  The Army Council’s logical decision that, because Henderson had nursed the RFC from birth, he should lead it in the field, was a great disappointment to Trenchard, who, reasonably, expected the Head of the Service to be retained at the War Office while someone of his own rank, experience and vigour was sent to the battlefield.

  Like Henderson, of whom he was the antithesis in most ways, he was a reader as well as a doer. His preference was for biographies of men of action: Clive, Warren Hastings, William Pitt, the Duke of Wellington.

  He was, however, given a task for which he was no less well suited than for one at the Front. Henderson put him in command of the Military Wing — still an official title — at Farnborough, charged with the prime duty of forming the new squadron needed for the RFC’s rapid expansion.

  Lieutenant Colonel F. H. Sykes, who had been a conspicuous figure in military aeronautics from the earliest days, loathed Trenchard, and was commanding the Military Wing when war broke out, had become Henderson’s Chief of Staff. Cold, unpopular, an intriguer, he was the object of general mistrust but had contrived to win Henderson’s confidence.

  Sykes, visiting Farnborough, made the mistake of officiously telling Trenchard that his main responsibility would be to train replacement pilots for the squadrons in the field. This ignited Trenchard’s short fuse and exploded a typical rasping reproof. “Don’t talk such damned rubbish. My job here, as you should know, is to produce new squadrons.”

  With such a forthright, uncompromising and incisive man to support him, Henderson was able to depart for France, after seeing his squadrons off from Dover, confident that he had left all well at home in the best possible hands.

  There were many contradictions in Trenchard’s nature. He was a genius at administration and organisation, although academically a dolt. From his preparatory school he went straight to a crammer’s at the age of eleven, to prepare for the entrance examination for the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. He failed and was sent to another crammer to work for the RMA, Woolwich. He failed that examination twice. He then sat thrice for the Militia, a back-door means of entry to the regular Army. The pass mark was 1645 out of 2400. At his third attempt, in March 1893, he scraped in at last with 1673.

  Two months later he sailed for India as a platoon commander in the Royal Scots Fusiliers. At once he became conspicuous for his strength of character, dedication to his regiment and platoon, and determination to excel at all that he undertook; and for his bumptiousness. If Trenchard wanted to pursue some activity for which no facilities existed, he created them. Having asked his Colonel for permission to form a polo team, within six weeks he had persuaded other officers to buy horses, had established stables and obtained a playing ground. He applied himself to shooting so assiduously that in 1894 he won the All-India Rifle Championship gold medal and the Viceroy’s Cup. More importantly, he coached his platoon until every man was a first-class shot. When he took three months’ leave he organised race meetings, parties and balls wherever he went. He was a restless man of boundless energy, who had the delicacy of a steamroller when faced with opposition or reluctance. A born high-powered busybody.

  He was also fearlessly pugnacious in defence of himself. Subjected to constant bullying by a major, he waited until the battalion went into camp: then loosened the guy ropes of the major’s tent one night; and when the infuriated senior officer emerged from the enveloping folds of tumbled canvas, threw a jug of cold water in his face for good measure. This cost him a reprimand. It was a brave deed that could have incurred a court martial.

  In turn, he was not slow to behave badly himself. As a major, he once greeted a newly arrived subaltern by asking him if he liked riding. The subaltern said he didn’t. “Good!” Trenchard exclaimed, and ordered the newcomer to meet him at the stables after tea: taking advantage of a junior from whom military discipline demanded obedience. His glee at the prospect of making someone suffer, which is implicit in “good”, is unendearing.

  Boorishness figured among his less attractive qualities. His hostess at a dinner party mentioned that Trenchard was her maiden name and produced a family tree for his diversion. “There are only two branches of the family that interest us,” he told her. “The main one, to which I belong; and a second one which I have always understood was founded about two hundred years ago by the illegitimate son of an umbrella manufacturer in Manchester.” The party thereupon broke up, but Trenchard was too pleased with himself to show remorse. His host wrote to his Colonel, who duly reprimanded him again for his atrocious manners. There was also a distastefully snobbish intent behind the reference to the umbrella-maker.

  He was insolent. In India, after the murder of a British Commanding Officer, Lord Curzon, the Viceroy, ordered that he must be sent reports of all military occurrences, however minor. Trenchard, when Orderly Officer, sent Curzon a telegram to say that he had rebuked a sergeant for throwing a lump of fat at a punkha coolie. (A servant who pulled a rope to swing one of the cloth fans that hung in every room
.) In South Africa, when a general ordered pickets to be posted on some hills, and a major informed Trenchard that the general was interested in every detail of this, Trenchard, exercising his brand of humour, asked whether the general wanted fat or thin men in certain positions.

  If Sykes had unattractive qualities and Trenchard could be as unprepossessing, Henderson in contrast was charming, as well as straight, honourable, scrupulous, loyal and clever. Trenchard shared the first four of these virtues and was clever also, but in a different way. He was, however, like many military leaders of the time, inarticulate in both the written and spoken word.

  These two largely disparate men respected each other and worked in harmony. Their immediate target was to increase the number of squadrons to twelve. A less sanguine estimate of the numbers needed successfully to oppose the enemy was made by the officer who, as Deputy Director of Military Aeronautics, was in charge of supply and equipment at the Military Aeronautics Directorate, Lieutenant Colonel W. Sefton Brancker. He thought the target should be thirty squadrons.

  Sefton Brancker had been hovering in the background of military aviation for over three years, had moved into the foreground and was worth paying attention to.

  In style he was the quintessential cavalryman, a monocled dandy whose quiet charm and self-deprecating manner camouflaged a dashing spirit. He described himself as “a very moderate pilot”, but, in June 1914, flew a BE2C, the first aeroplane with true inherent stability, from Farnborough to Upavon and wrote a report while he did so: flying hands-off, except when he had to use the throttle. He first appeared on the scene in January 1911, when, stationed in India, he chartered an aeroplane to take part in the cavalry manoeuvres. Flown by a Monsieur Jullerot, he, as observer, did some useful reconnaissance: until the second day, when the aircraft crashed and fell to pieces. In 1913 he learned to fly, attended CFS, was put on the RFC Reserve, and presently replaced Captain Ellington at the Military Aeronautics Directorate. He now began to play an increasingly important part in the Service.

  And it was not long before no less a potentate than Kitchener doubled his estimate of necessary squadron strength to sixty.

  *

  For the time being, there were only 4 squadrons available, comprising 63 aircraft. The French started the war with 23 escadrilles, each of 6 aeroplanes: a total of 138. The Germans sent 198 aeroplanes to the Front, in 33 Field Service units, each 6-strong, and retained 10 Home Defence units, of 4 aeroplanes each. The performance of the three countries’ aeroplanes was about the same, and only the French Voisin III bomber had a permanently mounted machinegun.

  The fighting spirit of the British pilots would have to compensate for lack of numbers. Before No. 2 Squadron left Dover, Major Burke (nicknamed “Pregnant Percy”) told his pilots that, although they were unarmed, he did not expect them to ignore any Zeppelins they might happen to see en route: a subtle but clear order to ram. From the first day, the feeling of being engaged on a hazardous adventure was cognate with recognition that this was a matter of highly practical ruthless killing and self-sacrifice. All pilots and observers wore revolvers. Many took rifles up with them. Before leaving England, some cockpits had been fitted with racks to hold a rifle and a few grenades. In addition to the twenty-pound Hale bombs that were stowed in the cockpits and dropped over the side by hand, fléchettes — steel darts five inches long and three-eighths of an inch in diameter — were carried, 250 at a time, in canisters under the fuselage from which they were released by tugging a wire. They, grenades and bombs were all used against other aircraft as well as ground targets. These crude attacks were not so much hit or miss as miss or miss. The chances of hitting a stationary target from an aeroplane travelling at sixty miles an hour were remote; of hitting another aircraft, when its slipstream as well as its speed would complicate judgment, they were about equal to those of the biblical camel’s of passing through the eye of a needle.

  At first, however, both sides were mainly engaged in reconnaissance. The British were not ready to start at once. Amiens was only a staging post on their way to what was intended to be a permanent base. On the 16th, Headquarters and Nos 2, 3 and 4 Squadrons moved to Maubeuge. But they did not have to wait until they began operational flying to suffer their first losses. Lieutenant E. W. C. Perry and his mechanic crashed in a burning BE8 and were killed. Two days later No. 5 Squadron joined the others and Second Lieutenant R. R. Smith Barry broke several bones when his BE8 crashed. His passenger, a corporal, died. An unexpected menace came from their own side. Flying over French troops was an invitation to be fired upon with rifles. After a few days the British Expeditionary Force appeared in the area, and now it became equally risky to fly over one’s own people.

  The atmosphere seems to have been light-hearted and unresentful, since nobody was actually hit. Lieutenant R. S. Wortley, reminiscing, rhapsodised: “Pilots — one couldn’t find a jollier lot of fellows. Such exuberance of spirits I have never seen. The cool confident courage with which they handle these very imperfect machines of theirs and the zest with which they respond to any and every call upon their services is quite amazing. Hardly a day passes but our machines are fired at from the ground: not only by French sentries but by our own infantry as well.”

  The RFC flew its first operational sorties on 19th August, when, at 9.30 a.m., Captain P. B. Joubert de la Ferté, a flight commander on No. 3 Squadron, flying a Blériot, and Lieutenant G. W. Mapplebeck of No. 4, in a BE2, took off on the RFC’s first reconnaissance. Joubert de la Ferte’s task was to find out if Belgian forces were in the Nivelles—Genappe area. Mapplebeck’s was to see if enemy cavalry were in strength near Gembloux. They were supposed to keep company as far as Nivelles, so that if one were to make a forced landing the other could report where he had done so. The weather was cloudy and deteriorating. The pilots lost sight of each other and soon neither knew where he was. Mapplebeck arrived over Brussels, but did not identify it! Eventually he did find Gembloux but saw only a small force of German lancers. After groping his way through cloud and following the Sambre, he landed back at Maubeuge at midday. Joubert de la Ferté, in a slower aeroplane, strayed about between cloud layers until he landed at Tournai, where he could learn nothing about the Belgian Army, so flew on until, lost once more, he put down at Courtrai. The Gendarmes told him that the Belgian Flying Corps Headquarters was at Louvain. Although this did not entirely fulfil his brief, it was the best he could do in weather that was scarcely fit to fly in. He returned to base at 5.30 p.m. The sorties were not without value and Henderson telephoned their results to Field Marshal French.

  Baring recorded that “The weather was fine and hot. There was no excitement. Life was like a cheerful picnic.”[4]

  It was not quite a picnic for everyone, however. On the 22nd twelve reconnaissances were flown, in the face of machinegun as well as rifle fire from the ground, and yielded much valuable information: the Germans were advancing, leaving burning villages in their wake. The day was notable for three occurrences, each the first of its kind on record. Sergeant Major W. S. Jillings, of Two Squadron, observing for Lieutenant N. Noel, was shot in the leg: the first British airman to be wounded in flight. The day’s major excitement was provided by a Taube, the type that constituted half the German aircraft strength. It was spotted approaching the aerodrome at 4000 feet and Lieutenant Louis Strange, of Five Squadron, who had been allowed to fit a Lewis gun to a Henry Farman F20, took off to shoot it down. The gun was so heavy that he was unable to overtake it or climb beyond 2000 feet. This was the RFC’s first “scramble” and the armed Farman was the earliest ancestor of modern interceptor fighters. The third “first” was an unhappy one: another No. 5 Squadron aircraft, piloted by Lieutenant V. Waterfall, with Lieutenant C. G. G. Bayly as observer, was brought down over enemy territory by ground fire and its crew taken prisoner.

  The day’s last sortie brought back a report that sent Henderson hurrying to General Headquarters to deliver it personally to Field Marshal Sir John French. All day, reconnaissance h
ad found enemy forces on the move in what appeared to be an attempt to surround the Allies. Now came confirmation that a whole Army Corps was travelling west along the Brussels—Ninove road; and, aware already of the efficacy of aerial reconnaissance, hiding as much as possible under the trees that lined both sides.

  The Germans planned to sweep into France through Belgium and Luxembourg: but, instead of concentrating their weight on their right wing, they gave equal strength to their left so as to meet an expected French offensive in Lorraine. The result was that the French met stronger resistance than expected and were forced to fall back: while the Germans’ right flank was held up by a much stronger Belgian defence than it had reckoned on. The British were also facing the enemy’s right, near Mons.

  Field Marshal Joffre ordered a retreat along his whole front. In consequence, Field Marshal French decided not to mount his intended offensive but to hold the line at Mons, which was soon under attack.

  On the 24th a general Allied retreat began. RFC HQ and its squadrons moved to Le Cateau. In the next ten days they moved eight more times: maintaining, it seems, a light-heartedness that belied any suggestion of calamity: although there was some chaos, caused by crowded roads and mistakes in drivers’ map-reading. Officers and men ate whenever, and slept wherever, they could. The first night, the pilots and staff officers spent in a straw-filled barn. Joubert de la Ferté remembered that one night he slept under a hedge in the rain, the next comfortably in a private house, the following one in a luxurious hotel. Louis Strange recalled: “The usual orders on the retreat were dawn reconnaissances, dropping hand grenades and petrol bombs on the enemy, and when it was impossible to notify pilots of the next aerodrome, the orders were to fly approximately twenty miles south and look out for the remainder of the machines on the ground, if machines had left the last aerodromes.”[5]