The First Great Air War

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  In May Bishop was awarded the MC and in June the DSO.

  He planned a single-handed attack on Jasta 5’s aerodrome at Estourmel, and carried it out on 2nd June. He was called at 3 a.m. and took off shortly before five o’clock to hedge-hop his way to the target. Having climbed to 200 feet as he approached, he saw six Albatros DIIIs and one two-seater outside the hangars, so dived and strafed them. Two Albatroses were taking off and he shot them both down. Two more followed them. He shot one down and attacked the other but had emptied his ammunition pan. Rather than hang about while he reloaded, knowing that other enemy fighters might appear at any moment, he made off. Thirty-seven minutes after having set off, he landed. Trenchard extolled this feat as “the greatest show of the war” and put him up for a VC; which was gazetted in August.

  Bishop’s action had confirmed Trenchard’s theory. Trenchard deplored the adulation of fighter pilots for the number of enemy aircraft they brought down. He did not make this public, but the view he expressed in private was that bombing made a far more valuable contribution to winning the war. And, he said, the right time to destroy enemy aeroplanes was before they could get off the ground. Then, the greatest damage could most economically be inflicted. The attack that Bishop thought out for himself could not have met with greater approval from Trenchard if he had personally briefed Bishop for it: the destruction of aircraft on the ground; in this instance, by a fighter pilot using only a machinegun.

  Collishaw, that altogether admirable man, has been given far too little recognition by air historians. They are mostly concerned with British, French and German fighter aces and tend to ignore those from the Commonwealth; except Bishop, who couldn’t be overlooked with only one victory less than the top-scoring Mannock.

  Collishaw had a pithy view to express, which coincided with Trenchard’s. Newspaper reporters who visited aerodromes ignored all but the fighter pilots, he pointed out, because there seemed to be an inherent glamour in their role. The work of artillery observation pilots, for instance, was highly technical and made good reading only when something went wrong. The public derived its information from The London Gazette, in which awards were published. A decoration for “Fearlessly attacking a large number of enemy aircraft” made better reading than “carried out X number of photographic reconnaissances”.

  Air fighting had not developed for its own sake but to prevent the enemy from operating over one’s lines and to protect bomber and reconnaissance aircraft.

  Lloyd George was considerably to blame. In the summer of 1917, letting off verbal wind in the House of Commons on the subject of fighter pilots, he brayed: “They are the knighthood of this war, without fear, without reproach; and they recall the legendary days of chivalry, not merely by the daring of their exploits but by the nobility of their spirit.” Referring to these specious platitudes, Collishaw condemns them as nonsense: sport was confined to jousting, but when knights went into battle they fought to kill. Where was the chivalry?

  With a character like Richthofen roving the sky like a mangy but dangerously rabid jackal, ready to snap up any Allied aeroplane of inferior performance and armament to his own, and often protected by his admiring henchmen, who held back to let him add to his shabby tally and keep at bay any of the victim’s friends who might try to help him, sloppy references to chivalry are totally ludicrous. The essence of combat, in the air, on land or at sea, is exemplified in Bishop’s shooting up the two Germans when they were defenceless on the ground after ducking out of a fight. It wasn’t sporting but it made excellent sense. Had they voluntarily landed on the Allied side of the lines, he would have left them alone. As it was, why let them live to fly another day and kill an ally?

  At the same time as Bishop and Collishaw were terrorising the enemy, Mannock was still striving to establish himself in the regard of his fellows. On 9th May he was alone behind the German lines at 16,000 feet after his leader had turned back with engine trouble. Three Albatroses appeared and he went for them but his gun jammed. He spun out but they followed him down. In a succession of spins punctuated by brief moments of level flight, when the enemy would resume shooting, which took him down to 6000 feet on his own side of the lines, the Albatroses withdrew. He at once recrossed the lines but found no trade, so went home. Major Tilney, seeing how tired and dejected he was, gave him a respite. He was due to patrol again in the afternoon, but Tilney sent him as a passenger in a 16 Squadron RE8 to fetch a spare Nieuport from St Omer. On the way he underwent a change of attitude. Thinking over the intense fear he felt when over Hunland or in combat, he realised that he must overcome it and apply himself entirely to “learning the game”. Thenceforth he was noticeably more relaxed and cheerful and the squadron treated him with increasing friendliness.

  But he was still making no reputation as a fighter pilot. Sortie after sortie produced no success, although he unhesitatingly attacked every enemy aircraft that came within range. Major Tilney was intelligent enough to divine that Mannock needed encouragement and sympathy and a display of confidence in him. He therefore often let him lead a patrol. This increased his confidence but did not improve his luck. On 25th May he led his flight into a fight with two artillery spotters. One was too high to catch but Mannock fired and frightened it off, then turned at the other and shot thirty holes in it around the area of the pilot’s seat. The aircraft nosed down slightly and flew on. Mannock was convinced that he had killed the pilot and that the aeroplane was merely continuing as it had been trimmed to do. Nobody had seen what happened, so he did not claim a kill for fear of disbelief and ridicule.

  He was shooting and missing so often that he began to worry about what was wrong with his aim. As he had an almost blind left eye, one would have supposed the answer to that was obvious. On 7th June he shot down an Albatros at last; his first confirmed kill. Five days afterwards he was coming in to land when he felt intense pain in his right eye. He fainted under the medical officer’s ministrations. After the eye had been anaesthetised in hospital the surgeon removed a large piece of grit and a sliver of metal from it. On 17th June he was sent home on two weeks’ leave; where he found that his mother had become an alcoholic. He was glad to return to France.

  On 12th July he shot down a DFW two-seater on the Allied side of the lines and went to see the wreckage, to check the accuracy of his shooting. He was nauseated by the sight of a small black dog in the observer’s cockpit, pulped by his bullets, and the two dead men; the pilot a pulverised mess of broken bones and torn flesh. But he found three bullet holes in the side of his head. The following day he sent down two more two-seaters. Until then some of the squadron had still doubted his courage.

  A newcomer to the squadron at about this time affords us a welcome different view of Mannock from the old stagers’. On the afternoon when McLanachan arrived he was astonished to find a tennis court, where a game of doubles was being watched by officers in deck chairs. Three of the players were actually wearing white flannels. His reception was casual but friendly. Asking where the CO was, he was told: “That’s the CO, over there, but you’d better not disturb him until the set is finished.”

  Noticing him, Major Tilney, “a young, rather florid-faced youth”, called: “You the new pilot? See you when we’ve won this set.”

  The set over, Tilney came to chat and asked McLanachan if he had ever flown a Nieuport. He had. To his surprise Tilney called to the others: “Come on, here’s a fellow from Smith Barry’s squadron who has flown a Nieuport. Let’s see what he can do.” Smith Barry’s work as an instructor on No. 1 Reserve Squadron, which he commanded, was already well known.

  So up McLanachan went and at 1000 feet the engine cut. There was not enough height to dive and restart the engine, so he decided to perform one of No. 1 RS’s favourite stunts and do a spinning nose dive: which, everywhere but in Smith Barry’s unit, was regarded as a death trap. He landed safely and neatly in the middle of the airfield and waited for the mechanics to start the engine so that he could resume his display. Instead, one
of them told him that the Major would like to speak to him. “Much to my amazement, on approaching the CO he turned away from me and walked off.” Hurrying after him, McLanachan began to apologise, but Tilney waved him away.

  A tall weather-beaten pilot was laughing. This was Mannock, who explained that all the onlookers had thought he was going to crash and kill himself. “We don’t like watching fellows kill themselves, and Tilney looked away when he thought you were finished.”

  McLanachan instantly feared that Tilney would send him back for further training, but Mannock reassured him. “If you can handle a machine like that we want you in this squadron.”

  Ever afterwards, said McLanachan — whom Mannock dubbed “McScotch” — he felt grateful to him for these friendly and encouraging words. They saved his self-respect and showed him that Mannock had “a somewhat Puckish sense of humour”. Everything about Mannock, according to McLanachan, demonstrated his vitality: a strong, manly appearance and directness of speech. They became friends immediately.

  It was not many days before McLanachan, on patrol with two others, saw a Nieuport catch fire. It was flown by a nineteen-year-old of whom everyone was very fond. The spectacle was particularly revolting because the Germans had recently begun using incendiary bullets, which were forbidden by the Geneva Convention except against balloons. McLanachan was so angry that before his next sortie he told a mechanic to fill his drums with tracer, armour-piercing and incendiary rounds. The mechanic replied that if he were forced down on the other side with incendiaries in his drums he would be shot and he, the mechanic, court martialled. McLanachan then went off to fill the drums himself. Mannock found him at it, and, looking distressed, reasoned with him.

  “They’ve never fired anything at me but incendiary. Could you coolly fire that muck into a fellow creature; or worse still, into his petrol tank, knowing what it must mean?” And Mannock talked him out of it.

  *

  Captain Maurice Baring spent his time accompanying Trenchard on visits to the squadrons, by air because lack of time demanded it, and to Wing and Brigade HQs. He made the interesting comment in his diary that Harvey-Kelly said the Germans he met in the air now were like floating meat. A month later: “We got the news that Ball is missing. This cast a gloom through the whole Flying Corps. He was not only perhaps the most inspired pilot we have ever had, but the most modest and engaging character.” Between these events, on 29th April: “We went to Vert Galant to see Harvey-Kelly, who commanded No. 19 Squadron. When we got there we were told he had gone up by himself and one other pilot for a short patrol.” Then he wasn’t by himself; and he went with another pilot. “By lunch time he had not come back. He was due and overdue. When we went away the General said: ‘Tell Harvey-Kelly I was very sorry to miss him,’ but I knew quite well from the sound of his voice he did not expect this message would ever be delivered. Nor did I.

  “Harvey-Kelly never came back. He was the gayest of all gay pilots.” (Would one dare write that now, intending high praise?)

  But there were compensations. The 4th June, their Founder’s Day, was celebrated by 300 Old Etonians at a dinner in the Lord Roberts Memorial Hall. (He doesn’t say where; St Omer? Ypres?) “I knew about five by sight. All my contemporaries were Lieutenant-Generals. They sang, accompanied by the Coldstream Band, and after dinner everything in the room was broken: all the plates, all the glass, all the tables, the chandeliers, the windows, the doors, the people …”

  *

  Collishaw was finding little time for rowdy evenings. He had an experience that almost matched one of Louis Strange’s two years earlier. In a dogfight at 16,000 feet he was turning inside an enemy machine and keeping an eye on another that was trying to get on his tail. A third Albatros loomed dead ahead. There was no time to consider stress limits. He shoved the stick right forward and just scraped beneath the aircraft in front of him. The violence of the manoeuvre broke his safety strap. He found himself outside the cockpit. He grabbed at the two centre struts. The engine was at full power and the controls were left to their own devices. The Tripe dived steeply with Collishaw’s legs and lower trunk trailing in the slipstream. Suddenly its nose reared up, then it stalled into a falling-leaf spin. It took all his strength to hang on. His hands were slipping when the aircraft pulled up sharply and his body slammed onto the cockpit coaming. He worked one leg into the cockpit and hooked a foot round the stick to pull it back and settle the Tripe in level flight. When he fell into his seat he was down to 6000 feet.

  In the months of June and July, his flight shot down eighty-seven enemy aircraft for the loss of one pilot.

  *

  On 4th June Henderson wrote a summary of the work and worth of the Royal Flying Corps, for the consideration of the Chief of the Imperial General Staff: excellent in content, rambling in style. He does not refer specifically to the events of April, but the allusion to them, couched with modesty and dignity, is inescapable.

  “When the Royal Flying Corps crossed to France in 1914, it held certain advantages and suffered from certain disadvantages connected with the aerial forces of other nations. In the first place, it was well organised, the personnel had been carefully selected, and both officers and men had been trained in their particular duties solely with a view to efficiency in war. The squadrons had come fresh from a camp of instruction at which all the possibilities of the Air Service had been practised, and had been freely discussed by the officers and men. Although there was neither tradition nor war experience to guide them, certain theories had been evolved that in the main proved correct, and above all, the Corps had become imbued with a spirit of duty and devotion which was quite remarkable in so young a service. The disadvantages under which it suffered were: firstly, the small numbers; secondly, the variety, both in design and efficiency, of its aeroplanes; and thirdly, its limited supply of engines, which in addition were almost entirely of foreign manufacture.

  “For the first year of the war these advantages proved so great that, in spite of the early deficiencies, the Flying Corps was able to carry out its duties so successfully that its value as one of the arms of the Service became firmly established. In its action two principles were never departed from, one was that information for the Army must be obtained at any cost, the other that any enemy met in the air, whether in aeroplanes or in airships, must be immediately attacked. The value of the information obtained in the early stages of the war is, of course, known only to few, but when, after the war, the story of these first months is compiled, one of the real surprises in store for the public will be the realisation of the influence of the work of the RFC on the course of the campaign.

  “The early disadvantages under which the RFC laboured were in the main due to the conservatism both in civil and military circles of this country, in respect of possibilities of the new service. Money had been provided not very liberally, and was extracted from the Treasury only by the most persistent efforts of those upon whom the responsibility of building up the flying Service had been thrown. The total lack of comprehension of the requirements of war which up to 1914 had characterised practically the whole of the civil population of these islands, and which in an intensified degree was accepted by the politicians to whom the guidance of the country had been entrusted, led to continual misunderstandings as to the necessity for the complete organisation and the complete equipment of the Flying Corps. The general public could see no reason why anything was required beyond a number of good flyers and a number of good aeroplanes, the type of flier being the man who could play tricks over the aerodrome, and the type of aeroplane being that which each individual pilot might happen to prefer; and not least among the obstacles to efficiency was the ignorant criticism of those who exploited the ignorance of the public in order to advance either their own reputations as brilliant thinkers, or the fortunes of some commercial enterprise in which they were interested.

  “Any person who has followed the course of the war can now see for himself that the advantages with which the Flying C
orps started have been increased, and that its disadvantages have progressively diminished. After nearly three years of continual fighting, with heavy losses suffered under strain which is unknown to other combatants, the spirit of the Corps is as undaunted as ever, and its offensive has never been relaxed; its numbers have increased to an extent which, although never divulged, is known to be very great; its equipment, both in quantity and quality, has made still greater advances; the scope of its work has been extended to such an extent that the Air Service has become an indispensable factor in successful operations. The very bitterness of the outcry which arises whenever there is a suspicion that our superiority in the air is menaced is in itself an indication of the importance which is attached to its efficiency. Even those who have little knowledge of the operations of our Armies in the Field can measure in some way the growth of the Flying Corps by the enormous development of the aeroplane engine industry at home.

  “There are those still who think that aeroplanes and pilots are all that are required to make an efficient Flying Corps, but those who have seen our flying men at work, know very well that it is not by numbers alone, or even by mechanical superiority, that success is to be won, but it is the man who tells in the end; and the fighting men of the Flying Corps have to be trained in other things besides flying. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the Royal Flying Corps is that it has jumped from tens to thousands, the thousands have inherited the same spirit, the same devotion and discipline, as imbued the little band that crossed the Channel on the outbreak of war.”

  Among the many matters demanding Henderson’s attention was one that was a conspicuously far-sighted appreciation of the possible use of air power and a tribute to the progress aviation had made in the past three years. His paper on this, dated 26th June 1917, is as sensible as the one above; and, notable for its improved lucidity and concinnity. It is entirely relevant here as a rider to the earlier paper and an appreciation of how closely the air arm was already integrated with the General Staff’s planning for the development of tactics and strategy.