The First Great Air War

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  In general, an RFC officers’ mess at the Front was shabby, with poor-quality, often ramshackle, furniture. On the walls were pieces of aeroplanes the squadron had shot down and pictures of scantily clad girls. A piano was indispensable, always hard used and poorly tuned. So was a gramophone, and anyone going home on leave was expected to bring back a record or two, preferably of the latest musical comedy and music hall hits. In most messes pilots frequently let off steam by getting mildly drunk, singing, and smashing tables and chairs. The rough and tumble games that have for decades been a feature of dining-in and guest nights in peacetime were invented at the Western Front. The French and Germans frequently drank heavily but did not go in for these often bone-breaking and concussing indoor sports. Nor did the Italians or Americans.

  A typical Flying Corps song, with its wry acceptance of aircraft crashes and death, was sung to the tune of “A Tall Stalwart Lancer Lay Dying”. Its chorus went: “Take the cylinder out of my kidneys, / The connecting rod out of my brain, my brain, / From out of my arse take the camshaft/ And assemble the engine again.”

  Merriment, natural to high-spirited young adventurers, was the keynote of mess life; forced though it often was, and holding a desperate note of trying to forget the next sortie. Lord Chesterfield would have disapproved. In 1749 he warned his son against, and disparaged, “horse-play, romping, frequent and loud fits of laughter, jokes, waggery …” Between 1914 and 1918, and again between 1939 and 1945, ribald and rowdy behaviour was often what saved many men from nervous breakdowns and madness.

  On some aerodromes, shell holes were lined with tarpaulins, filled with water and used as swimming pools. If there happened to be a river or canal handy, one could be sure that all British ranks would go bathing in it. By late 1916, the officers on a few aerodromes had laid out tennis courts. Often, horses were available to ride: borrowed from the cavalry, artillery or Service Corps, or commandeered from farms and large private houses. There were always several dogs on any RFC camp: some owned by individual officers and men, others the general property of the squadron.

  On many squadrons, at various periods, the three flights messed separately. When two or three squadrons were brought together as a wing, they retained their own messes, separate from Wing Headquarters’. The atmosphere of a squadron in the various air forces depended to some extent on numbers and very much on the Commanding Officer’s nature. Too small a mess could be claustrophobic and breed feuds. Too big a one was in danger of being cold and impersonal. The decision that an RFC squadron should consist of twelve pilots had been based on doubts that officers of high enough calibre to command a squadron could be found in sufficient numbers if the units were smaller and therefore more numerous. It was also the minimum number to ensure an agreeable variety of company. Although an escadrille and a Feldfliegerabteilung functioned similarly to a squadron, they were more closely equivalent to a flight. As has been seen, the time was at hand when several of them would be grouped together for greater efficiency.

  In the British Services junior officers had traditionally been treated unkindly by their seniors: severity, contempt, rudeness, all were practised on them. In the Navy, a seventeen-year-old midshipman was liable to be given six strokes with a dirk scabbard by the Sub-Lieutenant of the Gunroom, where officers below lieutenant’s rank messed.

  Typically, officers, except for a handful who had been educated at home by tutors, or, like Trenchard, at boarding crammers’, had been to public schools. They therefore took it for granted that initially they would be harshly received and have to serve their time before being in a position to tyrannise others and gain privileges for themselves.

  Generally, in the RFC, snubs and tyranny were almost unknown: the character of the type of man who was attracted to flying ensured that. Informality and friendliness came naturally. There were exceptions. Duncan Grinnell-Milne, who had transferred from the infantry in July 1915, was given a cool reception when he reported to No. 16 Squadron in France during the Battle of Loos. He was the only new arrival that day. The aerodrome itself looked dangerous and unwelcoming: L-shaped, its perpendicular arm was 100 yards long, varied in width from 40 to 100 feet, and followed the curve of the River Lys. The horizontal arm was 20 yards long. He found a brick farmhouse containing the offices, and lines of tents. There were few officers about and the two or three to whom he spoke were off-hand and taciturn. One did ask which flight he was on, pointed, and said: “There’s your flight commander.”

  The latter, Captain C. Wigram, asked Grinnell-Milne how many flying hours he had.

  “Thirty-three, sir.”

  Wigram said that it was disgraceful to send pilots out with less than fifty, and preferably a hundred, hours. He asked what types the newcomer had flown.

  “Longhorn, Shorthorn, Caudron, BE2.”

  Wigram wanted to know if it was the latest BE2 with the 90-h.p. RAF (Royal Aircraft Factory) engine.

  Grinnell-Milne told him it was not.

  That, said his flight commander, was no good. There were only Shorthorns on his flight and he had too many pilots already. “You’ll have to wait your turn to fly. And stand to attention when I’m speaking to you.”

  This flight and one other slept and messed aboard a barge on a canal that branched from the river. The third flight occupied the farmhouse half a mile away. When he had stowed his kit, Grinnell-Milne took a stroll. Pilots and observers whom he passed stared and did not offer a word. The atmosphere at dinner was oppressive. Only the two flight commanders conversed. The rest occasionally whispered. One sullen pilot, who had an MC for shooting down an enemy aeroplane, scowled and addressed only the senior flight commander, who responded with an occasional patronising smile.

  Halfway through dinner the Commanding Officer, Major H. C. T. Dowding, nicknamed “Stuffy”, for his reserved humourless manner, arrived. Wigram introduced the new arrival, who had to rise and walk to the top of the table to shake the Major’s hand. Dowding tried to break the prevailing silence by speaking to each officer, but the response was never more than “Yes, sir” or “No, sir”.

  After dinner, when someone put a record on the gramophone, there was a shout of “Stop that bloody row.”

  Next evening, dinner was rather less moribund. The Battle of Loos was in full swing and the squadron had done good work. The Major sent the servants out of the room and read the communiqués and Intelligence summary. There was a secret document with a map, which laid down the RFC’s duties. This had to be read and initialled by each officer.

  The next morning, Grinnell-Milne was sent up in a Shorthorn with an observer. They flew to the battle front. The aircraft began to be rocked by exploding anti-aircraft shells. The observer suggested turning back. On landing, the flight commander said, “You had your first look at the lines today, didn’t you?”

  Grinnell-Milne could hardly credit that somebody had actually spoken to him. This emboldened him to mention that he had been “Archied”.

  Wigram commented that he must have been damned scared.

  Grinnell-Milne admitted that he had been very scared, but that once he got used to it, it didn’t seem so terrible after all.

  Wigram, scathingly addressing him as “young fellow”, told him not to talk nonsense and to wait until he had a bit more experience before talking lightly about Archie.

  The commander of the other flight sharing the barge put his oar in: “Who says he doesn’t mind Archie?” he demanded. In his turn he ridiculed the novice and accused him of thinking he knew a lot because he had “seen a couple of shells in the distance”. The first time Grinnell-Milne really got fired at, he assured him, he would “go all goosey and run like a hare”.

  There was some discussion about a pilot who had been shot down on reconnaissance. The same flight commander was indignant because the luckless officer had gone so far behind enemy lines. A lot of the young pilots on the squadron, according to him, were too keen to go chasing over the lines, thinking they would be “covered in honour and glory”. All th
ey achieved, he insisted, was either to “get carbonisé”, the French term for being burned to a cinder, or join the Kaiser for a meal in Potsdam.

  It seemed that these two flight commanders, at least, were what La Guerre Aérienne called “honorary pilots”, and hardly an inspiration to their juniors. It was not that there was a cunningly orchestrated attempt to destroy confidence about their conduct. Rather, the impression is of a malevolence amounting to a form of spiritual pollution abroad. Grinnell-Milne was leading a dog’s life and one’s interpretation is that those who occasioned it were gloating. There was nothing about life as an officer in 16 Squadron to bear out the general reputation of RFC messes as havens of tolerance and concord.

  One day Grinnell-Milne attacked an observation balloon a mile behind the German lines. Despite anti-aircraft fire he made two passes at it, his observer punctured it with the Lewis gun, and the enemy had to haul it down. His flight commander accused him of having gone a long way over the lines.

  Grinnell-Milne demurred that the balloon was quite near the Front.

  This was nonsense, said Wigram. He had seen that balloon himself and it was a long way back. He reminded the offender that he had orders not to cross the lines, and warned the “young feller-me-lad” that he was looking for trouble.

  Grinell-Milne returned one day with a damaged propeller. His flight commander demanded to know how the devil he had managed to get two bullet holes in it.

  “I had a scrap.”

  Had the bullets come from the enemy?

  Grinnell-Milne replied that he thought so.

  Wigram suggested that the shots had come from his own gun. How would he like it if he were made to pay £40 for a new propeller?

  Another flight commander, known as Foxy, incurred Dowding’s displeasure for being seen, by the wing commander, going round his flight wearing pyjamas under his greatcoat. Foxy said there was nothing wrong with that. Britain would not lose the war because of it. It was his morning in bed instead of dawn patrol. Dowding immediately asked Wing HQ to post this officer away. “No one but this old starched shirt would have made such a fuss about it,” Foxy complained. But, he added, of course the Major had to make a fuss, because he was only concerned about missing promotion. Foxy was a regular officer, due for his majority and a squadron of his own, which makes his virulence all the more bitter and exceptional. He must have been very sorely provoked to violate the code by criticising their Commanding Officer to his juniors; mostly holders of mere temporary commissions, at that.

  Harmony in a squadron depended on its Commanding Officer. Dowding’s was conspicuous for its discord. His unpopularity and mistakes arose from unconquerable shyness as well as from a lugubrious natural austerity. He and Trenchard together could create an atmosphere of excruciating tension. When Trenchard lunched in 16’s mess, “Boom”, according to Grinnell-Milne, hardly spoke. “Stuffy” droned throughout in a barely audible voice. Everyone else was silent. The pilots had been expecting Trenchard to have a talk with each of them. Instead, he left immediately after lunch. A word would have been encouraging and lack of it made his visit uninspiring.

  The contrast between this stultifying atmosphere and that of a good squadron with high morale is exemplified by comparison with life on 24 Squadron under Lanoe Hawker’s command. In 24’s mess there was frequent rowdy conviviality. Every week the officers of some other squadron would be invited to dinner and the squadron’s hospitality was almost as frequently reciprocated. Most of 24’s pilots were twenty years old, some were younger, only Hawker and one other were twenty-five. When at home to guests they fought battles in which armchairs were used as armoured cars, tennis balls as bombs, soda syphons as flame-throwers and fly-sprays as weapons of chemical warfare. These last were also wielded like clubs. The squadron mess was a transportable hut, one wall of which was hinged so that it could be folded for each removal. When a scrum of any sort was in progress, the hosts made a point of manoeuvring it towards this wall. The panel would drop and out would tumble several struggling visitors.

  Always concerned about his pilots’ recreation, Hawker borrowed horses from the cavalry and had a tennis court marked out. He joined in all activities himself, riding, playing tennis and tumbling about in the roughest of mess games. On one occasion, in another squadron’s mess, he was knocked on the head and spent some minutes unconscious. Participation did not lead to familiarity and contempt. He was always respected as well as admired.

  Riotous venting of high spirits in the mess in which its CO joined as energetically as his juniors did not impair discipline or efficiency. Within less than three months at the Front, three pilots had been awarded the Military Cross.

  Fifty years later, one of his pilots described Hawker as a leader of men who combined modesty with great courage, gentleness with a steely determination, and unselfishness with a most human understanding.

  *

  For the Italian airmen, living conditions were pleasanter than on the Western Front. Operations were on a more modest scale because both the opposing air forces were smaller than those engaged in France. Some squadrons were based at established peacetime stations with permanent buildings and on the outskirts of towns where ample recreation was available. Above all, the Italians were at home, unlike the British and Germans; and though the French were also in their own country, their aerodromes were as makeshift as those from which the British and Germans operated.

  The Italian Air Corps pilots in particular, and fighter pilots most conspicuously of all, displayed the same jauntiness as in the other warring nations. It was the bomber and reconnaissance squadrons that predominated, so the comparative scarcity of fighter pilots contributed to their standing.

  In the first many months after Italy’s entry into the war, the Austrian Air Service was the more active and better trained. In addition to constant reconnaissance over the battlefield, it sought to spread panic in the cities and took Italian aerodromes as its objectives. Despite this, Italian airships made many night raids on a variety of targets. The Air Corps was able to give little help to the ground forces fighting the Battles of the Isonzo River, but bombed railway junctions and factories.

  The dawn of the year 1916 was severe and harsh on the ground, at sea and in the air. Although the Army found ways to overcome the logistical difficulties of the first winter in the trenches, the Air Corps had to stay grounded by bad weather and low temperatures which damaged the aeroplanes and increased the number of engine failures. But gradually the old machines were replaced by new ones of greater power, and supplies of weapons, bombs, spares and wireless sets began to flow. Up to May 1916, 279 aeroplanes were built.

  By the end of March the front-line Air strength was: seven Caproni bomber squadrons; two Voisin and eight Farman reconnaissance squadrons; five Caudron and two Farman artillery observation squadrons; five fighter squadrons; one seaplane squadron.

  Provision for aircraft flying over the mountains had to be made. Airstrips were laid out in the valleys for those who had to make forced landings. Telephone and telegraphic communications were established between these and Headquarters.

  With an agreeable touch of Latin floridity, the archives tell us that “The fighters were born in the spring of 1916. They were given their baptism of glory by Captain Francesco Baracca, who initiated his series of victories by bringing down two aeroplanes adorned with the enemy’s insignia of the black cross, in the sky above Medeuzza.

  “For the Mauser pistol, the ’91 rifle and the musket, aboard our aeroplanes, were substituted machineguns. At the beginning these were not adapted to use in the air because, apart from being subject to frequent jamming, the magazines held few rounds.” Exactly as with the Lewis guns on British and French fighters. It was not until early 1917 that synchronising gear was fitted to Italian fighters. Until then, as in the RFC, machineguns had to be mounted in the nose of a pusher or on the upper mainplane of a tractor.

  We should not dismiss Baracca’s first success so baldly. It was a great occasion fo
r the entire Italian nation and deserves to be told as his official biographer recounted it. The 7th April 1916 began at 4 o’clock in the morning for No. 1 Fighter Squadron. The rumble of Austrian aeroplanes in the sky resounded in every direction, towards Palmanova, Tricesimo, Casarsa. The red glow of anti-aircraft fire and the shifting bright beams of searchlights had bathed and streaked the sky all night. At first light, one after another aircraft took off, climbing to 2000 metres and dispersing in all directions in search of prey.

  After about half an hour had elapsed, Baracca picked out two enemy machines making rapidly towards Gorizia. “I saw above me,” the ace recounted in a letter to his family, “the big wings of an Aviatik, with the black cross. He was going fast and I gradually gained on him. When he climbed, I increased speed. Drawing close, I had begun a most difficult manoeuvre to protect me from his shots. I saw the machine-gunner aiming in one direction and I veered in another, then vice versa. This game continued for several minutes until I was positioned 50 metres behind his tail at a height of about 3000 metres. Then, in an instant, I aimed and fired 45 rounds. A moment later the enemy swerved heavily to one side and was thrown almost vertical.”

  The pilot of the Aviatik, a Viennese cadet aged twenty-four, although wounded in the head, with the petrol tank holed, the wings riddled, and the observer slumped over his machinegun, screaming with pain and shedding streams of blood, was able to bring the aeroplane under control and landed in a meadow near Prato. Baracca landed in the same place. A crowd of soldiers threw themselves on him and hoisted him shoulder-high in triumph.

  A second enemy fell to Baracca’s guns on 16th of May. He scored his third kill in the summer, on 23rd August, and the fourth on 16th September, to end the year with a total of four which rose to thirty-four in the course of three years’ fighting.

  That engaging character Fulco Ruffo di Calabria achieved his wish to transfer to fighters, in May 1916, when he was sent to a flying school at Cascina Costa on the Gallarate moors, where pilots were instructed on the Nieuport Bébé, which Macchi were manufacturing under licence.