The First Great Air War

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  At the end of July, Lieutenant Colonel Brooke-Popham wrote to tell Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Ashmore, commanding the Administrative Wing, in England, that the German aeroplanes were becoming far more active and making a regular habit of attacking reconnaissance sorties. The RFC was having to fight for all its information. It was also having to fight in pairs as well as singly and it would probably become necessary always to send aircraft out in pairs or even whole flights. General Henderson therefore wanted the squadrons at home, which would be sending replacements to France, to practise formation flying and doing simple manoeuvres in couples.

  Manufacture of the new Fokker was delayed by the unreliability of the Oberursel engine. While the Germans waited impatiently for the fighter to reach the Front in large numbers, a fairly leisurely and relaxed mode of operating survived a little longer. War in the air was always an intensely individual matter, each kill very much a personal success. In the first twelve months it not only demanded initiative and was fought aircraft-to-aircraft, which meant, for pilots, man-to-man, but it also bestowed a freedom that would not be possible when the whole process became formalised.

  If the word “fighter” had not yet come into use, the terminology was at least rapidly approaching it. “Fighting” and “fighting type” aeroplanes were written and spoken about. Henderson saw that the most effective way of using the single-seater scouts that passed for fighters in the early days would be to form squadrons exclusively equipped with one such type: as the French did. His subordinates were less perceptive and insisted that they should be distributed in penny packets around the squadrons. Obviously the pilots held this view because they all wanted a chance to get their hands on one. Hence the opinion held by the wings and expressed to the General Officer Commanding contradicted his own. He should have imposed his views, but did not. Trenchard would have.

  Henderson probably gave way because only the Bristol and Martinsyde Scouts with a Vickers gun on the upper wing were available and neither was the true purpose-built fighter for which he was looking. On 25th July 1915, however, No. II Squadron became operational at the Front, fully equipped with the Vickers Gunbus. Although this was a two-seater, the squadron was the first to have only fighters and these all of the same type. Nos 5 and 6 Squadrons each had a Gunbus flight.

  In July, the Fokker E2, which had a 100 h.p. Oberursel engine in place of the El’s 80 h.p., began coming into service. This put its speed up to 87 m.p.h. and gave it a 12,000 foot ceiling. But some of the engine problems lingered.

  Reconnaissance sorties were increasingly threatened. On 21st July, Pilot Corporal V. Judge, in a No. 4 Squadron Voisin, and his observer, Second Lieutenant J. Parker, armed with a Lewis gun, a rifle and two revolvers, were outnumbered and brought down on enemy ground by machinegun fire. One of the enemy flew over No. 4’s aerodrome and dropped a message to say that the observer had succumbed to his wounds; and “the German pilots have the highest praise for their opponent, who died in an honourable fight”.

  Ten days later, Captain J. A. Liddell of 7 Squadron won a VC, flying an RE5 with Second Lieutenant R. H. Peck. An E1 dived on them. Bullets hit Liddell’s thigh. He fainted. The RE5 lost 3000 feet and when its pilot recovered consciousness he found it was on its back. He rolled out straight and level, with a smashed control wheel and throttle. Still under fire and at low level, he managed, after some thirty minutes, to land behind Allied lines. He died of his wounds.

  The two German pilots who most conspicuously took advantage of their new fighter were Boelcke and Immelmann. They were both thorough and methodical, treated air fighting as a science, systematically worked out its basic principles and arrived at the best ways of applying them. Their theory, which was again followed in the Second World War and remains basically valid today, was as follows.

  Opening an attack, a fighter pilot should have a height advantage and the sun behind him.

  He should make use of cloud to conceal his approach.

  His objective should be to get so close to his target that he could not miss it, yet be in a position where the enemy could not bring a gun to bear on him. In a fight between two forward-firing single-seaters, this meant being astern of, and slightly above, the other aircraft. A single-seater fighting a two-seater that had a rear machinegun needed to position itself behind and slightly below.

  If attacked from ahead, a pilot should turn directly towards his adversary. This presented the smallest target and reduced the time in which the other man could aim and shoot.

  If attacked from behind, a pilot should bank into the tightest possible turn. This made it difficult for the enemy to get on his tail; and, if he turned inside the enemy, he had a chance to get on his tail.

  Boelcke, with his greater number of flying hours and more mature character than Immelmann, was the world’s first great fighter tactician. Immelmann’s outstanding contribution to aerial combat was the turn which is named after him. Aerobatics are, of course, the basis of attack and evasive action.

  Before the war, only a few pilots had dared to try such movements, but a surprising variety existed and some were possible only with the very light, slow aeroplanes of the period. Adolphe Pégoud, the famous French stunt artiste, demonstrated his range at Brooklands in September 1913. One item was the bunt or outside loop, a manoeuvre still forbidden in the RAF. Pegoud added two elaborations to it. In one, he half-rolled at the bottom of the bunt, so that he was upright and flying in the direction opposite to that in which he had entered the outside loop. In the other, he described a vertical S, by making half an outside loop, then pulling the stick back and making an equal semi-circle with an opposite convexity. Another amazing feat was to stall at the top of a 45-degree climb, control his aeroplane in so masterly a fashion that it slid backwards in a parabola, then, when it again momentarily hung stalled and motionless, this time as though suspended by its tail on a sky hook, he put on power and dived into his next trick.

  Immelmann designed his turn to make a second attack on a target in the shortest possible time after the first. Having dived, he pulled up into a loop, at the top of which, when, of course, he was inverted, he half-rolled out so that he was upright. He would now be above his target, behind it, but flying in the opposite direction from it. By stalling and falling away into a stalled turn, he was able to dive straight back onto the enemy. There were, therefore, two distinct parts to the manoeuvre. First came the “roll off the top”, which might in itself be all that he needed to do if he were taking evasive action rather than breaking off to renew an attack. Next came the stall turn, which took his enemy by surprise.

  Immelmann, Boelcke and an observer, Teubern, found a small empty house in Douai and moved in. One can imagine the long discussions which occupied their evenings: the two pilots arguing, the observer making tentative contributions. None of the three smoked, they almost never drank, all were fond of sweet cakes. Immelmann wrote home to say admiringly that Boelcke was an accomplished sportsman “in the most varied directions”. He described him as “an extraordinarily quiet, reflective fellow and he owes it to his mode of life that he shows no sign of the strain, although he has been flying from the beginning of the war and has spent a long time at the Front”.

  In another letter to his mother, on 25th June, he tells her that he has been flying 25 to 30 kilometres behind the enemy lines and has made the most flights on the Abteilung: 21, compared with Boelcke’s 19.

  When Fokker demonstrated the E1 to Flight Section 62, he was impressed by Immelmann’s ability. He also admired him because he neither drank nor smoked and went to bed at ten o’clock. Learning that this paragon of rectitude and seemly hours was an engineer, Fokker offered him a job after the war, as pilots with his qualities would be hard to find. Fokker even went into detail. He would start as chief test pilot and progress to an engineer’s job when he had acquired the necessary knowledge of aeronautical engineering. He would be paid a salary plus a percentage on the sale of machines and the fees paid by pupils whom he trained. Immelmann wa
s not as callow as he looked. He assured his mother that this offer had been made in front of witnesses.

  On 1st August, the British bombed Douai aerodrome. Immelmann records waking at 4.45 a.m. to hear about twenty aeroplanes overhead, bombs bursting, flak firing. By then, 62 had the Fokker EII. He and Boelcke took off. He says he saw both British and French machines, although there were no Frenchmen there. His aircraft recognition seems to have been poor, even making allowances for the pale light of dawn, for the BE2c was unmistakable by anyone with average eyesight. Both British and French aeroplanes bore roundels, but the RFC’s consisted of a blue outer circle, a white inner circle and a solid red “bull’s eye”. The Aviation Militaire had the red and blue reversed.

  Immelmann attacked a BE2c that was being flown without an observer — to allow an increased bombload — hit it and forced it down. He had mistaken its markings, so, landing alongside, he called in French, “You are my prisoner.” The pilot held up his arm and replied in English: “My arm is broken. You shot very well.” Immelmann then repeated himself in English. He helped the pilot to climb out of the cockpit and to remove his leather coat and tunic. The arm was badly wounded. Immelmann made his victim comfortable on the grass and sent for a doctor. This was not an example of that much misused word “chivalry”: it was kindness.

  He had already been awarded the Friedrich Augustus Silver Medal for gallantry in the face of the enemy, after several artillery spotting and escort missions. He was now awarded the Iron Cross, First Class, for attacking a superior force and bringing one enemy down. Judged by later standards of what had to be done to win a medal, both these seem to be what, in the Second World War, the RAF called “a piece of cake”.

  Boelcke, who had also won an Iron Cross, and Immelmann kept pace with one another until by mid-September each had three victories. On 11th October Immelmann went ahead of his rival by shooting down a BE2c.

  *

  Political intrigue in London, coupled with a feud between French and Kitchener and Churchill’s quarrel with the First Sea Lord, had led to upheavals and changes in Government. Lloyd George was made Minister of Munitions. Henderson had to decide what would be the best way to ensure the greatest possible strength of the Military Aeronautics Directorate in fighting its corner against the other Services.

  To stand up to the powerful protagonists for Land and Sea at the War Office and Admiralty, whoever led the RFC at the centre of power and influence would have to be a general who had earned high repute for his technical knowledge and experience of battle. He had to recognise that he was the only one who met these criteria. Accordingly, with typical self-abnegation, for he would far rather have stayed in the field and would perhaps have risen higher than lieutenant general, he took the War Office appointment upon himself and designated Trenchard as his successor.

  On 19th August 1915, Trenchard was gazetted GOC RFC.

  Henderson found that, to meet the demands which came to him from every theatre of war, he needed to the full all his great qualities. He had often to fight for his Corps in circumstances where there was no tradition to support his argument and the role of the new arm was not fully understood. To the end he remained unruffled and kindly in judgment of those who did not understand, but he alone knew what a strain this imposed on him. About one vital factor he was never disturbed, for he knew that in its new chief in France, the Flying Corps had someone whose personality must impress itself in the difficult days ahead on a Service highly responsive to the inspiration of its leaders.

  *

  One of those most affected by changes was Maurice Baring. He had been sent to Italy to visit various factories and to see the Caproni bomber, find out if Beardmore engines would be suitable for it, and if it was advisable to order a Caproni for the RFC.

  When he returned to RFC HQ he found Henderson gone. Trenchard told him he would give him a month’s trial and asked if he would like to stay on. Baring asked permission to go to London to consult Henderson. Trenchard agreed. Henderson told him he would do best to stay in France. His occupation thenceforth was to trail round with Trenchard and take notes of everything from the General’s demand for Oxford marmalade for his breakfast to spares needed by the squadrons.

  By all accounts he did an impeccable job and won universal affection, respect and esteem. He began as a square peg in a round hole and ended as a perfect fit. He was obviously an immensely likeable man and utterly unassuming despite his acclaim as a writer.

  *

  A period of change in air operations had dawned with the arrival of several Fokker Eindecker at the Front that coincided with the next big ground offensive. On 25th September the Battle of Loos had begun. The French launched the main attack in Champagne, while a combined French and British attack was made in Artois. Both were badly planned. Joffre made a fool of himself. The result was a futile carnage of the kind that happened repeatedly in the Great War. Insignificant gains of ground were made at a cost of 242,000 Allied casualties. The Germans lost 141,000. Haig had been against the plan. After the battle, he replaced French as Commander-in-Chief.

  The RFC had recently begun escorting reconnaissance flights by at least one machine, a fighting type if possible. Often it was only one BE2C accompanying another.

  The Aviation Militaire had, since the summer, equipped its fighter escadrilles with the delightful little Nieuport 11, known as the Bébé, capable of 90 m.p.h. and 15,000 feet. Despite its performance, it was at a disadvantage against the Fokker because it was armed with a forty-seven-round drum-fed Lewis gun mounted on the upper mainplane. It would take more than the Nieuport’s margin of superiority in speed and climb to compensate for the Fokker’s Spandau fed by a 500-round belt and firing through the propeller. Oddly enough, and seldom mentioned, the Bébé had first seen service with the RNAS, at the Dardanelles.

  Coincidental with the Battle of Loos, which ended on 13th October, the Germans woke up to the wisdom of forming homogeneous single-seater units and set up three. Both Boelcke and Immelmann were chosen to join one. While Immelmann stayed at Douai, Boelcke was sent to Rethel, facing the French sector of the Line, to take part in an innovation: barrage patrols, singleton standing patrols near the Allied Lines, waiting to pick off enemy aircraft with the Fokker’s now established dive out of the sun.

  The French bomber groups, GB 1, 2 and 4, were busy with daylight raids during the offensives in Champagne and Artois. On 2nd October sixty-two aeroplanes attacked Vouziers, the site of German HQ Two were shot down. After this, Nieuports escorted them (shades of the German air fleets of 1939 and 1940 over France and England, with their protecting Messerschmitts), but this of course reduced their range. After a raid by nineteen bombers escorted by three fighters on 12th October, the bomber groups began to practise formation and night flying. Captain Happe, who commanded MF29, introduced large formations and took his escadrille out in the V that was to remain standard in all air forces for decades. He did not lead, but gave high cover, searching for the enemy and warding off attacks. After his men had bombed a poison gas plant at Dornach on 26th August and the Aviatik works at Freiburg, the Germans put a price of 25,000 marks on him. He sent them a message to say that, to avoid wasting time on anyone else, they should note that his aeroplane was recognisable by its red wheels.

  Despite the alarm that the Fokker created as soon as it came on the scene, at the end of October there were only fifty-five at the Western Front, and, two months later, eighty-six. As significant as the El’s advent was the small number of Albatros D1S that began to appear on the scene: the first aeroplane fitted with twin machineguns firing through the propeller.

  *

  On 7th November, Lieutenant Gilbert S. M. Insall, of No. 11 Squadron, brother of the Algernon J., an observer on the same squadron, who had been put off his breakfast boiled egg at Brooklands, took a Gunbus up with Air Mechanic T. H. Donald in the observer’s seat. They saw an Aviatik and chased it. The German lured him towards a rocket battery, but he divined the enemy’s intention and was ab
le to position himself so that Donald emptied a drum into its engine. Both machines descended below cloud. Donald fired a second drum and the Aviatik thumped down on a ploughed field. Pilot and observer tumbled out and tried to turn their Parabellum on the Gunbus. Insall dived, his observer fired again and wounded one of the Germans; who now began to run for cover, one supporting the other. Next, Insall dropped an incendiary bomb on the enemy machine which was at once hidden by smoke. On the way back to base, flying very low, ground machinegun fire hit the Gunbus in its fuel tank. Insall had to land behind a copse 500 yards behind the French lines. Enemy artillery fired 150 shells at the Gunbus, but none hit it. At night, under screened lights, the crew repaired the damage and, at first light, they flew home. This earned Insall a VC and Donald the Distinguished Conduct Medal.

  The younger Insall had something to say about the realities of air escort during the Battle of Loos. B Flight of II Squadron, commanded by Captain Playfair, was detached to Brancker’s wing to provide a protective screen over the battle area. “Four 60-70 m.p.h. rumbling old aeroplanes [Gunbus], each with a stripped Lewis gun guaranteed to blue its barrel if more than ten rounds were fired per burst, two .455 automatics or revolvers and a stripped Short Lee Enfield were responsible for the air safety of some thirty-odd observation and reconnaissance aeroplanes and thousands of troops defenceless against air attack.” They spent eighteen days on detachment, maintaining almost continuous patrols over the First Army battle area at 8000-9000 feet. They saw the Germans use gas but never an enemy aircraft close enough to engage it.

  On returning to their squadron, at Vert Galand, they made their first landing in the dark by the light of flares. Landing grounds were lit by setting out petrol tins, their tops cut off, containing half a gallon of petrol and cotton waste. These were laid out and lit on all RFC aerodromes at the Front when any aircraft was overdue and extinguished when all had been accounted for. The flares were arranged in an L shape and the pilot landed towards the short stroke.