The First Great Air War

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  He remained with the squadron beyond his scheduled three weeks, and, after six weeks, was told that his transfer had been approved. He could now put up the new observer’s badge, for which one qualified by making a flight over the Front: a letter “O” with a single wing sprouting from it, in white silk thread. Known at once and ever after as “the flying arsehole”, it remained the observers’ badge until 1942, when it was replaced by an “N” for navigator, in a laurel wreath with a single wing.

  He had applied for pilot training and on 26th May was sent to a small flying school at Crotoy that the RFC had opened for converting observers to pilots, on Caudrons. In his first week he made thirteen dual-control flights — six in one day — totalling four hours and twenty minutes. On 2nd June he made his first solo, of ten minutes, did another ten minutes solo, then was subjected to an hour’s test during which he had to do a figure of eight and several landings on a marked spot.

  Having gained his Royal Aero Club certificate in seven days, he was sent to England to complete his training to wings standard at Shoreham, on Maurice Farman Shorthorns and Longhorns, and Caudrons. The Flying Corps had quickly earned a reputation for wildness, and on one of several boisterous nights in London he and others on the course stole an ambulance and parked it outside the Piccadilly Hotel. The Provost Marshal demanded retribution, so the lieutenant colonel commanding the Training Wing had the Training Squadron moved to Gosport where he could keep an eye on them.

  With a total of twenty-five hours, Douglas received his pilot’s brevet. By the time he was posted to No. 8 Squadron, in France, he had increased this to thirty-two hours and fifteen minutes. Given a week’s leave, he preferred to spend it at Gosport and acquire further flying time. When he reached his new squadron on 18th August he had logged forty hours and five minutes. The average pilot at that time had about twenty hours when he joined a squadron: which Douglas called “sheer murder”.

  James McCudden, making his way through the ranks towards the pilot’s wings which it would take him some three years’ service to win, was having a much tougher time. The first three months in France had offered him few comforts. In the chilly late October weather of 1914 the ground crews were still sleeping under the aircraft. He had been unable to change his underclothes for nine weeks. At the same time, he had his second bath since arriving at the Front: in rainwater collected in the folds of a canvas hangar.

  Some of the Farman F2os had been fitted with Lewis guns. No. 3 Squadron had two of them. Neither proved capable of overhauling an enemy aeroplane, let alone shooting it down. Then the Squadron acquired a Bristol Scout and an SE2, on both of which rifles were mounted on either side, pointing at an angle of 45 degrees, to avoid the propeller. Neither of these machines accounted for an enemy, either.

  The squadron was already, in those first few months, using a procedure that became customary in the Second World War: working from an advanced aerodrome closer to the fighting than its home base. From St Omer they flew to Gorre for each day’s operations; and immediately came under heavy German artillery fire, which McCudden described as “quite uncomfortable”. In addition to doing his job as a mechanic, he flew often as observer for Lieutenant Conran, armed with a rifle. On l0th November 1914 he was promoted to corporal.

  Near the end of November, by when the first snow had fallen, the squadron was posted to Gonnehem, where a beet field had to be converted to an aerodrome. An Indian cavalry regiment was trying to level the ground with a roller. Everyone on the squadron who could be spared was fallen in and marched up and down, stamping in the beet and hardening the soil. Strong winds and torrential rain kept flattening the wood-framed, canvas-covered Bessoneaux hangars. The men had dug drainage ditches around these, “and every minute or so one heard a loud splash to the accompaniment of curses and oaths as some unfortunate mechanic fell into one”. The rain-soaked Gnome engines could barely develop enough power to lift aircraft off the sticky ground, and soon twelve tons of cinders were delivered daily to be spread, so that aircraft could take off more easily and land without digging their wheels in and tipping onto their noses. From here, again, a forward aerodrome at Fosse was used. Because of the difficulty in taking off, the pilots used to fly there alone. McCudden wrote: “I used to enjoy these trips very much as we had a nice five-mile car ride.”

  In February 1915 the squadron was experimenting with night flying. Conran and Pretyman went up on the first night and landed successfully without flares. Another notable occasion was the bombing of Brussels, in which all squadrons took part. From No. 3, Birch went carrying six twenty-pounders. He returned three weeks later, having landed with engine trouble in neutral Holland, whence he escaped disguised as a ship’s fireman: which makes one wonder what the distinctive garb could have been that would identify him thus. It recalls the contemporary music hall song “My old man’s a fireman on the Elder and Dempster Line … he wears a bloomin’ muffler around his bloomin’ throat …” It seems rather a thin disguise.

  Excitement, danger and calls for a display of heroism were not found only in the air. One incident was of a kind that became all too familiar on bomber stations a quarter of a century later. One March evening, McCudden passed Captain Cholmondeley outside the A Flight shed, where his Morane was being bombed. A few minutes later he heard two explosions and felt their shock waves. The Morane was on fire. He ran to help and found eleven dead men — including Cholmondeley, “one of the best liked officers and best pilots” — and two badly mutilated lying around it. With four more bombs likely to explode at any moment, McCudden and the other rescuers swiftly moved the victims. Major Salmond arrived, ordered everyone else away and remained there: “A splendid example of coolness that still further increased our respect for our Commanding Officer.”

  One May morning, Lieutenant Corbett-Wilson and Captain Woodiwiss did not return from a reconnaissance. A German dropped a note on the aerodrome to say that anti-aircraft guns had shot them down over Fournes and they had been buried there.

  In July, McCudden applied for a pilots’ course but was held back to continue acting as an observer and doing his mechanic’s job. In compensation, he was given a test to qualify as an official trainee observer: a role he had been playing unofficially for several months without the reservation of “trainee”. “I was given a map and told to direct my pilot, Captain Harvey-Kelly, DSO, C Flight Commander, where to go. That evening we left the ground at about six p.m. and the course I had to direct the pilot to fly over was Béthune, Lillers, Aire, Hazebrouck, Cassel, Armentières, Merville, Béthune and home. About seven-thirty p.m. we arrived back and I was very pleased and proud at having successfully accomplished the task which now qualified me to be trained as an observer.” So, although he had been flying frequently over the Front for months, he was not yet entitled to wear the badge that Sholto Douglas had been awarded in a far shorter time and after one flight over the trenches.

  In November Major Ludlow-Hewitt took over the squadron, which another officer destined for high rank, Lieutenant Portal, had recently joined as an observer.[8]

  In the intense cold of winter McCudden suffered a frostbitten face, so took to wearing one of the protective masks that were issued. Another time he had a severe headache all day from flying at 11,000 feet, the highest he had yet been.

  He ended 1915 as a sergeant, still waiting for his pilot’s course.

  *

  Among the French, one of the most colourful, eccentric and reckless characters in the history of aviation was becoming conspicuous in a manner that contrasted with the conventional and conscientious McCudden’s, and with other, more serious, Frenchmen such as Garros and Guynemer, as dramatically as a peacock with starlings.

  Charles Nungesser was twenty-two when he enlisted in the hussars in August 1914. He had crammed more variety, enterprise and risk into his years than orthodox men experience in thrice as many.

  Like Sholto Douglas, he was of middle height, burly and good-looking. Both were good athletes, Douglas a rugger player, Nu
ngesser a horseman, boxer and swimming champion. He raced cars and motorcycles: speed and breakneck hazards were irresistible to him. He, in turn, was notoriously as attractive to women. Learning to fly, he went solo immediately. That was not unusual in those days. Louis Strange, describing how he was taught at Hendon — by a Frenchman, Louis Noel — said: “We knew that the machines into which they put us would fly, and we had expert instructors who could tell us how to fly them. All we had to do was to obey the instructor’s instructions and fly.”

  Strange went on to recount how Monsieur Noel despatched his pupils on their maiden attempts: “I have told you how to fly. You have understood, yes? Very well, I give you the last chance to say ‘no’. Very well, you can fly, do you hear? I, Louis Noel, say you can fly. I speak no more. I go to the bar. If you commit suicide, that is bad; but if you almost do that, it will be much, much worse for you.”

  Soon after Nungesser had survived a similar robust empirical indoctrination, his family suffered a financial misfortune. He went to Brazil to find a rich uncle who had departed from France without leaving an address. Uncle rediscovered, the dashing nephew stayed a while to try planting coffee before returning home to join a compatriot in organising flying meetings.

  Although he went into the cavalry, l’Aviation Militaire was in his mind. On 20th August 1914 he was at the Front. On 3rd September he performed a feat of arms that was hardly less astonishing than Horatius’s holding the bridge. He, a mere trooper, a cavalry lieutenant and two infantry privates were cut off in an enemy advance. The officer, wounded, hid. The other three lay in a ditch, and, when a powerful Mors car appeared at speed, Nungesser stopped it by closing a level-crossing gate; then, from ambush, he and his two companions shot all four occupants, and Nungesser drove the Mors furiously back to his regimental Headquarters. This episode is usually described in a way which implies that Nungesser disposed of the four Germans single-handed. It is common sense that this would have been impossible without hand grenades or a machinegun, either of which would have wrecked the car. The attack, anyway, needs no exaggeration. It was an act of outstanding bravery as it stands and Nungesser displayed initiative and leadership as well as courage. He was allowed to keep the bullet-holed car, promoted to corporal (two months before McCudden) and decorated with the Médaille Militaire. He became known as “l’Hussard de Mors”, but with characteristic mordant humour rechristened himself “l’Hussard de Mort”.

  In January 1915 he was appointed a driver at 33 Corps HQ. What aberrant altruism prompted any high-ranking officer to commit himself to the mercies of so reckless a chauffeur is hard to fathom. He now transferred to the Air Service and qualified as a military pilot on 2nd March. On 8th April he was posted to Escadrille V106 and lost no time in distinguishing himself on bombing raids. On the 22nd April he received his first citation for his part in operations on the 15th, 16th and 17th, and was promoted to sergeant: which, in the French cavalry, bears the resounding title of “Maréchal des Logis”.

  His mechanic, Pochon, was also his friend and used to drive him back to camp while he slept on the rear seat, after a night’s roistering in town. By 15th May, Nungesser had flown fifty-three day and night operations and was made a warrant officer. On 31st July he shot down his first enemy aircraft: one of five, which he hit in its carburettor and forced to land.

  In November he was posted to a fighter escadrille, N65, with which he stayed until the end of the war. He celebrated his arrival by weaving among the chimneypots and steeples of Nancy, looping over the main square and flying along the main street at thirty feet. Undeterred by his CO’s reproof, it was not long before, on 26th, the forcefulness of his personality prevailed on some of his comrades to accompany him to an enemy airfield where, while they kept guard, he gave a spectacular performance of aerobatics and strafing: a “beat-up”. For this he spent eight days in open arrest. Two days later, while still under arrest and ostensibly on an air test, he again shot down an enemy aeroplane.

  At the end of 1915 he was still awaiting a commission.

  Jean Marie Dominique Navarre was as ebullient a pilot as Nungesser and of no less worth to their country. Although his score of enemy aircraft destroyed was much the smaller, it was he whom the archives credit with having been the great innovator. “At Verdun,” the records say, “Navarre innovated combat between aircraft, and methodical attack. He demonstrated how the little monoplane, obedient to one sole will, could become a dangerous weapon for its adversary, in the hands of a pilot who was skilful, experienced and brave to excess.”

  The Battle of Verdun still lay a year and a half in the future when Navarre joined l’Aviation Militaire on war’s outbreak five days after his nineteenth birthday. He had been learning to fly at Crotoy, the same school where Sholto Douglas would soon be converting from observer to pilot, but interrupted his training to go to the colours. He obtained his military pilot’s brevet the following month. The records say of him: “It is true that, like Garros, Navarre possessed a bird’s sense of flight.” He was posted, a second lieutenant, to bombers, Escadrille MF8, where “He revealed extraordinary coolness.” He was posted to N12, to fly fighters, a year later. The end of 1915 found him with two victories to his credit, patiently and methodically learning his new craft.

  *

  On the other side of the lines, the aeroplane pilots and observers of the German Military Aviation Service were diligently filling the gaps in their professional knowledge that were a result of their country’s obsession with airships.

  Among the names on which fortune has conferred fame in air fighting, Max Immelmann’s was one of the first. His brother describes him as a studious boy who was calm and thoughtful, affable and modest, self-assured and self-reliant; and comes dangerously near to making him sound a prig. He was certainly ascetic. As a cadet he was chaffed by his comrades for his dislike of meat and abstention from alcohol.

  In 1905, aged fifteen, he entered the Cadet School at Dresden, where he found it difficult to adapt to the discipline and stiff etiquette. On 4th April 1911, the youngest ensign in the German Army, he joined the Second Railway Regiment. This hardly sounds like a lively environment, and his resignation the following year, to study at Dresden’s Technical High School, causes no surprise.

  On l0th August 1914 he saw a notice asking for volunteers for the Aviation Corps, and applied. Two days later he was mobilised and it was not until 12th November that he was posted to the Aviation Replacements Section at Adlershof, from where pilots and observers were sent on courses at various aircraft factories. He learned to fly at LVG, where he was also taught about engines, aeroplane construction and meteorology and how to use a compass. On his eighth day he began flying with several ascents at heights of fifty to eighty metres, and landings, under an instructor. After fifty-four flights he went solo on 31st January 1915. On 9th February he passed the pilots’ test, which demanded five figures of eight and a landing after each at a place marked by a red flag. Then came the preliminary test for a “war pilot”: 20 smooth landings and two flights of 30 minutes at 500 metres. After that he had to pass the actual “war pilot’s” test of one hour at 2000 metres and a glide down from 800 metres. Next, on 11th February, came the “field pilot’s” test. On this, he had to climb to 2600 metres, which took him 65 minutes, then descend to 2400 metres for 20 minutes’ straight and level flying, followed by another short drop to 2200, from where he glided down to land in three minutes. His instructor was very pleased.

  He was naïf, it seems. He wrote to tell his mother that he was very popular with his superiors, his fellow pupils and his subordinates. Was he clairvoyant, that he could divine what underlings thought of him? They would hardly have fawned on him with expressions of praise.

  On 12th February he returned to the Aviation Replacements Section for further instruction. By the end of the month he had made forty-five flights, but none across country, and was assessed the best pilot on the course. Two pilots were wanted for the Front and Immelmann was told he could be one of
them if he demonstrated a landing from 800 metres and another landing on rough ground. Attempting the latter, he hit a manure heap and turned over, was unhurt but failed to qualify for the front line. Finally he had to make fifteen landings outside the aerodrome and do three cross-country flights.

  On 12th April he joined No. 10 Field Section for artillery co-operation. His aeroplane was prepared for operations by the fitting of metal sheets under the fuel tank and seats, a bomb rack and map board.

  There were ten officers on the section, five pilots and five observers. “The gentlemen are all very nice,” he wrote to his mother, “but that is a matter of course with airmen.”

  He spent only two weeks there before being transferred to Flying Section 62, which was being formed under the command of Hauptmann Kastner to fly LVGs. Three of the six pilots were lance corporals but all six observers were officers; four of them ex-cavalrymen. One of the pilots was Oswald Boelcke, with whom Immelmann formed a close friendship. They had in common a serious disposition, the constant search for innovations that would make them and their Abteilung more efficient, and reserved, highly self-disciplined natures. Boelcke, a devout Catholic and in every sense a good man, evolved into the first great fighter leader and remains one of the most admired figures in the development of air fighting.

  In May 1915, Flying Section 62 was among those which were re-equipped with the new Fokker E1, a single-seater monoplane that revolutionised the situation in the air over the Western Front by devastating the French and British air forces. At the year’s end, Immelmann had shot down five aircraft and Boelcke three: with many more in prospect for them both.

  More typical of the average pilot, who did not attain fame but shared all the dangers of those who did, was Hauptmann A. D. Haupt-Heydemarck. He at once gives the impression of having been an easy-going, good-natured man, a pleasant companion. Initially, he was not fired with any particular zeal for flying; he went in for it because the chance came his way and he took it more out of curiosity and boredom than with dedication. Patience he certainly had: his flying apprenticeship began in the summer of 1912 and, after a two-year interim, was resumed in 1915. He was an infantry lieutenant when his regimental Adjutant announced that volunteers were needed for training as pilots and observers. Every officer stepped forward, but the Army was in no hurry and they were left waiting months for a summons to flying school.