The First Great Air War

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  On 15th February he was posted to No. 10 Reserve Training Squadron to learn to fly the DH2 and FE8. Here he met McCudden, who made a strong favourable impression on him; and who, in return, spoke of him as having great natural aptitude.

  In January, Sholto Douglas, newly returned to France in command of 43 Squadron, found snow on the aerodrome at Treizennes, where 40 Squadron was also based. One of his flight commanders had stalled on take-off from England and was killed with his mechanic; another, with two broken legs, had to walk on sticks and be lifted into his cockpit. Morale, already affected by the Albatros and Halberstadt, was not high. Most observers were still not being given any training in Britain and had to be taught their duties on the squadron. The 1½ -strutter was fragile and broke up if roughly handled. To show what could be done with it if treated properly, Douglas took his Recording Officer, Purdey, up and did thirteen loops. It was not until he landed that he found that Purdey had not done up his safety strap. Centrifugal force and, no doubt, a frenzied grip on the cockpit coaming, had kept him in his seat.

  For defence against enemy fighters Douglas made his formations fly with less than a length separation between aeroplanes and fight in formation instead of breaking. From the first few sorties he learned that offensive patrols were going to have to fight all the way out and back. As soon as they crossed the lines they could see German fighters taking up favourable positions to attack them. Casualties in February and March were so heavy that someone was lost almost daily. These losses were caused not only by the quality of the enemy machines and pilots but also because pilots were still arriving at the Front with far too little training and were often shot down within a few days. Trenchard admitted that training was inadequate but did not relax his demands for expansion. He also opposed escorts for bombers, which he maintained should be able to fight their own way out of trouble. Despite this, many raids were escorted because Brigade and Wing Commanders were in closer touch with reality than he was.

  The RFC was on the threshold of its period of greatest adversity. On 9th March 1917 Richthofen led an attack on an offensive patrol of eight 40 Squadron FE8s in which four of them were shot down. Four others were damaged. On the 24th two Sopwith 1½ -strutters of 70 Squadron on reconnaissance were shot down and the rest damaged. The task was repeated next day. The only survivor was one Sopwith that returned early with engine trouble. The other five perished. Thus fourteen officers were lost, dead or missing, and seven aeroplanes, in successive days and on the same mission. Total aircraft losses in March were 120, of which 61 fell behind enemy lines.

  *

  On 1st January 1917 Leutnant Carl Degelow, who was to be the last recipient of the Pour le Mérite, joined his first squadron, on the Western Front. He has been described as “Germany’s Last Knight of the Air”, but this is purely dithyrambic: he had no title. He seems to have been a decent enough sort who enjoyed consorting with captured British airmen.

  At the age of nineteen he had joined the infantry in August 1914 and been commissioned in July 1915. He served first on the Western, then the Eastern Front, and returned to France in 1916. He volunteered to fly because he felt ashamed that he had lived in a dugout on a quiet sector of the line while there was heavy fighting at Verdun. In May 1916 he made his first dual flight. It was nearly his last, because of the unexpected effect of torque and a very strong wind. The Chief Instructor made him do twenty more. At the end of December 1916 he was posted to 216 Reconnaissance Unit.

  His first photographic reconnaissance sortie also almost proved fatal. He was given an elderly Albatros CV, known as “the Furniture Wagon”, which was much slower than the others. His two companion aircraft left him far astern across the French lines. First anti-aircraft fire and then five Nieuports did their best to kill him. In combat with the French fighters, his front gun jammed, his observer was wounded and the engine began to emit smoke. Resigned to being taken prisoner or burned to death, he switched off the engine and dived. Close above the treetops he switched on again and managed to reach his own side of the lines.

  Soon after, he saw a Caudron spotting for French artillery and chased it. This was not his unit’s function, but as he and his observer were both officers of the same rank, the latter could not exert authority. The Caudron opened fire. Instead of positioning the Albatros so that his observer could fire, Degelow went below it and began to shoot. Then his observer put in a few bursts. The Caudron crashed. Two months later they shot down another, in flames; and, a fortnight after that, had an inconclusive fight with a third, which they saw going down, smoking. The two definite victories were confirmed and pilot and observer were each credited with them. Degelow thought this illogical, as it implied four kills. The score was then adjusted to half a kill for each.

  His Commanding Officer praised the two officers’ aggressive spirit, but pointed out that shooting down the enemy was not what they were paid to do. Their aeroplane had suffered much damage and they had risked losing the valuable photographs they had taken. Leutnant Degelow showed his disgruntlement at being forbidden to attack enemy aeroplanes. His CO suggested that, as he plainly did not have the temperament for photo. recce., he had better transfer to a Jagdstaffel. In the meanwhile he paired him with an Oberleutnant observer who was a regular, as well as his superior, and who firmly restrained him.

  At the end of July Degelow started a two-week course at the Kampfeinsitzerschule — Single-Seater Fighter School — at Valenciennes; whence he went on to Jasta 36: where we shall catch up with him.

  He now rashly propounded two principles. One, “Immer ran auf meter, meter … Ever closer, metre by metre,” was trite. The other stretches credulity. He said that it was essential to get as close to an enemy aircraft as possible, which was already established by British, French, Italian, American and other German pilots and is indisputable. But when he added “even three or four metres”, he was being boastful and foolish. To be so close to debris resulting from one’s own gunfire, and, even more dangerous, flames and an exploding petrol tank, would be ridiculous rather than brave. His implication that it was his practice to approach to so short a range is a prime specimen of the type of indiscretion that the RFC used to, and the RAF still does, dismiss with derisive laughter and the condemnation “shooting a line”; or, more inelegantly, “bullshit”.

  Someone who more closely approached authentic knighthood was Ritter von Greim, “der Tank-Stösser … The Tank-Buster”. At the end of November 1916 he was still an observer, but at last about to be admitted to flying school. After his course he returned to Feldfliegerabteilung 3, whose designation had been changed to Flieger Abteilung 46. For a while he continued reconnaissance flying, before his request to go onto fighters was granted. In April 1917 he joined Jagdstaffel 34, commanded by Oberleutnant Dostler. There were still many months to elapse before he began to earn his tank-busting fame.

  *

  Despite the extreme severity of that winter, a high level of air activity had been maintained on the Western Front. On the Italo—Austrian Front foul weather had greatly curtailed it. With the first signs of spring, in March, Allied casualties began to mount: the Germans were ascendant.

  April brought a resurgence of reconnaissance, artillery observation and fighter patrolling in Italy. In France, it cast the threat of irreversible catastrophe over the RFC and Aviation Militaire. But Allied confidence and optimism were renewed when, on 6th April 1917, the United States of America declared war on Germany.

  CHAPTER 14 - 1917. Crisis

  A crisis is a turning point and in 1917 there were two. The fourth month of that year has gone down in RFC history as “Bloody April”. In the first week of April Henderson put the aerial situation at the Western Front, and policy regarding it, in perspective with a review and assessment.

  “The increased number of casualties in the Field lately are due to several causes. In the first place, the retirement of the Germans over a large section of the front necessitated a great amount of long-distance reconnaissance and of photo
graphy. This is always dangerous work, and specially dangerous in this case because of the special efforts made by the Germans to stop it. I understand, however, that the information supplied by the Royal Flying Corps, as to the German movements and the German preparations in front of our Army, have been absolutely complete. This could be ascertained by reference to Sir Douglas Haig.

  “Probably, in view of this retirement, the Germans had concentrated a very large proportion of their available forces in front of the British. There has not been nearly so much fighting in the French part of the line, and this may also be due to the fact that the French Air Service has hardly been pulling its weight of late. I was informed at General Headquarters that the information obtained by the French Air Service, with regard to their front, was very incomplete, so much so that a considerable portion of the German line in front of the French had to be photographed by the British Flying Corps.

  “There is no doubt that the Germans have produced within the last few months, a considerable number of fast single-seater Scouts, of which the best is the Albatross [sic]. The aeroplanes which we have on our front which are equal to, or better than the Albatross Scout, are two French types — the Spad and the Nieuport — and the English Sopwith triplane: of these we have[11] squadrons in all. Next to them, and still able to hold their own, are the small Sopwiths and the Martinsyde squadrons. Our first-class two-seater machines capable of being used for offensive fighting, are the de Havilland 4 and the Bristol Fighter: there are at the moment 1 squadron of each. The FE2D, with the Rolls-Royce, is a two-seater Fighter, which will not be outclassed for some time: of these there are 3 squadrons. The machines principally used for reconnaissance are Sopwith 1½ strutters: of these there are 3 squadrons. A squadron of SE5 single-seater Fighters, which is believed to be superior to any German machine, is due to leave England this week.

  “The delay in producing larger numbers of these fighting machines is due almost entirely to the delays in engine production. We are only now beginning to get British made engines equal to those which the Germans had for the last eighteen months, with the exception of the Rolls-Royce engine, of which the supply has always been limited. The high powered British engines, however, have now reached the production stage, and the quantities delivered are expected to increase week by week, which will enable us to provide for the Expeditionary Force first-class fighting machines in good quantities.

  “In addition to long reconnaissance, a very large amount of Artillery observation work is always going on, much more in our Army than in either the French or the German. This certainly adds to our casualty list without inflicting on the enemy proportionate losses in the air. It does, however, enable our Artillery to inflict much more serious losses on the German forces on the ground, and this must be taken into account in considering whether we get sufficient value for the casualties we suffer.

  “With regard to the losses inflicted on the Germans, the announcements which are made in the official communiques do not show their full extent; so much of the fighting takes place on the German side of the lines that very often there is no information whatever about the actions of our aeroplanes which are reported missing, but it is known that frequently in these unseen fights serious losses are inflicted on the Germans. The German casualties which are reported in our official communiqués are only those which are seen and vouched for by our Flying Corps in the course of their work, but from time to time fights have been witnessed from the ground in which both German and British aeroplanes fell in German territory. But, considering even the accounts of fighting in the air, the losses on each side are not disproportionate, considering the different employment that is made of the air forces, that is to say that the German aeroplanes are merely employed in trying to bring down our aeroplanes, whereas ours are mainly employed in doing work required by the Army.

  “It was noticeable last year that up to the beginning of June there was no marked superiority in the air on either side, and that the losses on each side appeared to be about equal. After that date, in the continuous good weather, our superiority became more and more marked, but our losses did not diminish to any great extent, for the reason that our superiority on the battlefield was only sustained by continuous fighting at a distance behind the German lines.

  “If we would consent to adopt the same policy as the Germans, there is no doubt that our casualties in the air could be diminished. Hitherto, when the German has found himself inferior, he has given up reconnaissance entirely, and has confined himself to defensive fighting on his own ground, but if we were now to follow these tactics the effect on the Army generally would be most serious; we would be able to show an admirable balance sheet of casualties in the air, but the Germans would have information of our movements, and we would have none of their movements; they would have observation for their guns, and our gunners would be blind. Such a policy at this period would be disastrous. The casualties must be faced.”

  However much one admires Henderson, this clumsily phrased, execrably punctuated and often ungrammatical effusion compares poorly with the correct and usually elegant style in which senior French, Italian and German officers wrote.

  The content has its errors too: neither the Martinsyde nor the FE2D was a match for the Albatros.

  It would have been interesting if Henderson had written another report to the CIGS four weeks later to explain the calamity that his optimistic purview had not foreseen.

  *

  A massive attack by the British ground forces, the Battle of Arras, was planned to begin on the 9th April. As a prelude, the RFC opened an air offensive on the 4th. The intention was to drive the Luftstreitkräfte out of the battle area, so that contact patrol and artillery co-operation squadrons would be unmolested. In numbers, the British were greater. There were 41 squadrons in France, comprising 754 aircraft. Of these, 25 squadrons, numbering 365 serviceable aeroplanes out of a strength of 465, were on the First and Third Armies’ front: opposed by 195 enemy aeroplanes, of which about half were fighters.

  Both the Allies and the Germans had been learning since the year began that it was not numerical superiority that decided air battles: it was the performance of the aircraft. This was chasteningly demonstrated now. Between 4th and 8th April, seventy-five British machines fell. Nineteen lives were lost, thirteen aircrew were wounded and seventy-three went missing. At the same time hasty training of pilots, who were not fully competent when they arrived at the Front, resulted in the wrecking of fifty-six machines in accidents. These new pilots averaged only 171 flying hours, a mere ten solo, and had no experience of the types they were to fly on operations.

  The statistics and Combat Reports make ugly reading. A typical disaster occurred on the 6th, when a whole formation of five DH2s of 57 Squadron on offensive patrol was shot down. A week later, when four RE8s (“Harry Tates”: he was a famous comedian) were ludicrously supposed to be escorting two others, they met Richthofen’s Jasta. He helped himself to one and his companions shot down the rest. Three days after that, four Albatroses shot down four out of six Nieuports. The enormity of sending the RE8 to the Front in late 1916 cannot be excused by a plea of necessity. It was designed on pre-1914 principles and was so slow and unmanoeuvrable that the observer was instructed not to stand and look over his pilot’s head when about to land: because his added wind resistance would tip the flying — just about — machine out of the sky and kill or cripple them both.

  The Harry Tate was Richthofen’s 41st victory, which took him past Boelcke’s record. Later the same day he added another, a BE2C. Both were as cheap as if a villain armed with a cosh had crept up on two old ladies in a dark alley and felled them.

  The Germans had taken advantage of the four months’ respite since the Somme battles to form and train new Jastas, to man them with their best pilots and to equip them with the finest fighter aircraft in the world. But these measures alone did not account for their high success rate. The British made it easier for them by continuing to fly creaking old BE2C and
other obsolescent types. These, beating into the strong headwinds of a delayed spring — it snowed that Easter — were like sitting duck to a poacher with a double-barrelled twelve-bore. Moreover, when these travesties of what a contemporary aeroplane should have been were sent pottering off about their lawful occasions they had to be wastefully escorted by an equal number of FE2B or D so-called fighters and given a top cover of the same number of Pups: which did at least stand some chance against the Albatros DIII and Halberstadt; but needed to operate in greater strength to be fully effective. Whatever type or quantity of really good fighters the RFC might have had, the rate at which Trenchard was killing off pilots, including many of the most experienced, meant that there would not have been enough first-class men to fly them. Early in the year, he had forbidden squadron commanders to cross enemy lines. The best ones ignored the order as often as they could. In all, his policy of showing aggression at any cost did for roughly forty per cent of his pilots and observers. Not only offensive patrols and reconnaissance sorties went far behind enemy lines, but also long-range bombing raids.

  To complement the British offensive, the French opened theirs on 16th April, on the Aisne. Commandant du Peuty imposed the same demands on l’Aviation Militaire. “Your task is to seek out, fight and destroy enemy aircraft,” he directed; and “Victory in the air must precede victory on land.”

  They justified their policy by reasoning that the intrusion of their aircraft deep in enemy territory unsettled the populace, kept fighters tied up far from the Front, and occupied the attention of anti-aircraft batteries that could otherwise have moved up to the battle zone.

  There was mutual esteem as well as collaboration. On l0th March du Peuty wrote to Trenchard:

  “I do not know how to express to you all the admiration I feel, and the whole French Flying Service feels, for the British Flying Corps.