“It was fun with Papa, wasn’t it Mama?” she whispered when Noelle leaned over to kiss her.
“Yes, it was. Now, go to sleep just for a little nap.”
She left the room and went downstairs to find Lance talking with one of the neighbors, a tall retired soldier named Melton. “Hello, Mr. Melton,” she said.
“Bad afternoon, I’m afraid, Mrs. Winslow.”
Alarm ran through Noelle. “What’s the matter?”
“Oh, it’s a political thing,” Lance said quickly. He caught Melton’s eye and shook his head, and Melton, being very quick, said no more.
After he left, Noelle came at once and said, “What is it, Lance?”
“There’s some trouble over in Austria. The Archduke Ferdinand has been assassinated by a Serbian. It probably won’t mean anything.”
“But you’re worried, aren’t you?”
“The Serbs and the Austrians are always trouble. You know how it is. It just takes one spark to set off some powder.” Then he forced himself to smile. “Nothing will come of it.”
****
Lance Winslow had said a tiny spark could set off a charge of powder, and that is exactly what happened. The death of the archduke triggered a series of events with worldwide repercussions. All eager to make some gesture of war in order not to waste their tremendous preparations, the leaders of the European nations began to move. The Austrians saw a chance to snatch up more of Serbia. Even though the Serbs offered to meet all of Austria’s terms, still that was not enough. The Serbs were allied to Russia, and Russia felt obliged to come to their aid. The French were allied by treaty to the Russians, which brought them into it. It was at this moment when Sir Edward Gray looked out over London and said the words that would always be associated with the beginning of what would eventually be called World War I, “The lights are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.”
All of the countries involved had made long-range plans for winning the war. For the most part, they trusted in the old military strategies. The war on the horizon would be one of infantry flanked by long lines of proud cavalry backed up, somewhat, by artillery. The country with the most men would obviously have the advantage. Almost none of them, except a few visionaries, expected anything out of the fledgling air forces. Germany, France, and even England saw that airplanes could be used for scouting out the enemy and getting vital information back to the generals. They hinted, perhaps, that it would be best if the air forces stayed out of the way of the real business of war that would be fought on the ground by men with rifles and bayonets. After all, these airplanes were flimsy affairs held together by wire and covered with fabric. They were viewed as a rich man’s toy but not at all suitable for such a serious matter as a war. Most Englishmen still cherished their tradition of the British soldier, bayonets held high by men in a thin red line, or a gallant charge of horsemen with their sabers raised high to the sky. Many leaders considered that such disciplined soldiers could never be replaced by anything, much less a contraption that seemed to fly only by a miracle.
But a few men saw the matter differently. The Royal Flying Corps had been established in 1912. It still depended on a de Haviland F-2. This plane could carry two men and a camera at seventy-five miles an hour and stay aloft for a little less than three hours. They also had the Avro 504, the Bristol Scout, and the Sopwith Tabloid, all ninety-mile-an-hour single-seaters.
Germany planned to attack France by driving straight through Belgium, which inevitably would draw Britain into the war, for Britain was allied by treaty to Belgium. Throughout July and into August, the crescendo of war increased every day across Europe. When German troops invaded Belgium’s neutrality, Britain had little choice but to respond. On August 3, the British issued an ultimatum to Germany—either Germany halt its invasions of Belgium, or Britain would be at war with her by midnight. It did not avail. Perhaps Germany did not believe Britain would endanger herself, but she was mistaken. On August 4, 1914, Great Britain declared war on Germany.
The day after the declaration of war, Lieutenant Lance Winslow stood before Brigadier General Thomas Summers. Summers was too old for command, but he still had fire, and he said, “You’re probably wondering why I sent for you, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, sir. I suppose it’s orders.”
“Yes.” Summers hesitated. “You are hereby promoted to captain, and you will organize Fighter Squadron Number 24. As soon as possible, you will fly your squadron across the Channel and attack the Bosche.”
Summers’ words sounded like a death knell to Lance Winslow. He knew it meant the end of all things as he had known them, but he said quietly, “Yes, sir. It is for this reason I joined the army. To fight for my country.”
Summers dropped his eyes for a moment. He had seen war before. This young man who stood before him had no idea of what death meant. But he will know, Summers thought, and his heart seemed to grow dark. They will all find out what death means.
CHAPTER SIX
Death Rains From the Skies
As the guns of August began to roar in the fateful year of 1914, all of Europe stirred with the tramp of marching feet. The war was now launched, and like a mighty juggernaut, it could not be stopped. All the nations involved had plans for quick victories. The kaiser had shouted to his men with the spiked helmets, “Home before Christmas!” This call was echoed by other nations, and the thought of a long, drawn-out war was unthinkable. The war was to be fought, as almost everyone saw it, with masses of infantry, aided by cavalry, and artillery playing an important part. Almost no one on either side saw the airplane as playing a significant role in the struggle that lay before them.
It was, perhaps, the last time in the history of the world that a war would be seen in a romantic light. In the harder and more cynical times that would follow, it would be much more difficult to stir young men to go to war singing cheerful songs. Songs such as “Smiles,” “Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag,” and “There Are Smiles That Make You Happy” revealed a joy and an innocent mood. Most of this carefree, gay, romantic mood would disappear with the sight of the first casualties, but at the beginning of the war, there was a carnival-like atmosphere that pervaded Germany, France, and most of the other nations that sent their young men out to die.
As for the air force, there were only a few planes, most of which were as much a threat to their own pilots as to the men who flew for the other side. The military use of aircraft had begun in 1905 when the Wright brothers had offered their new invention to the U.S. War Department. Three times they were rejected, and America lost out in the race that followed to produce attack planes. Not a single American-made airplane was engaged in the Great War.
This left it up primarily to the French, who were very much interested in developing an air force. They began earnestly building planes that could be used for military purposes, and when the Daily Mail offered a thousand pounds to any man who could fly the English Channel, the race was on to build aircraft with more stamina than the early kitelike affairs. By 1910 the British were also building planes on a more modest scale, but when the archduke was assassinated in Sarajevo, Germany had 1,200 combat machines, while France and Britain combined only had 1,000, and only a portion of these were ready for action. In August 1914, on the Western Front, France and Great Britain were able to muster 220 planes actually ready for flight, while the Germans had 260. England, to be sure, had little confidence in these. The secretary of war said, “We do not consider that airplanes will be of any possible use for war purposes.” Nevertheless, in 1912 the British had organized the Royal Flying Corps. When the war started, they began sending this flotilla across the Channel to France. Lance Winslow watched the first squadron sent to France with impatience. He himself wanted to join them, but he had been ordered to organize his own squadron, using more efficient machines and better battle tactics.
Day after day he read of the early pilots who flew a motley collection of planes, none of them equipped w
ith machine guns. He himself knew, as did a few others in the RFC, that until this happened, the airplane would be resigned to simply observing the action that took place.
The value of observation planes became obvious almost at once. General Sir John French walked blindly into the teeth of a German advance in late August of 1914. He was an old-line, stiff-upper-lip type who ran his troops with strict military discipline. However, when warned by his fliers that the Germans’ First Army was about to trap him, he managed to scramble back in a retreat from Mans just seven days after the first British plane set down on French soil. There are those who claim that this rescue, by means of scout planes, saved the Allies from losing the war in the first few weeks.
The Germans were better prepared for war and began bombing their targets immediately. By September the German armies were only two dozen miles from Paris, and a group called the Pigeon Unit, which was a cover-up for its real purpose of bombing France, began their work. This group included Manfred von Richthofen, later to be known as the Red Baron, Ernst Udet, one of the finest pilots on either side of the whole war, and Hermann Goering, who would become Adolf Hitler’s number two man in the rise and fall of the Third Reich and commander of the Luftwaffe, which would try to crush England in the Battle of Britain in a later war.
The early fliers carried pistols, shotguns, and even Very pistols, but some of them even carried slingshots and the French steel darts called fléchettes. Grappling hooks were even tried to tear at the surfaces of the enemies’ aircraft.
But in April 1915, the whole picture changed when a French pilot named Roland Garros proved the deadly effectiveness of a well-armed airplane. He mounted a machine gun directly in front of the cockpit. Ordinarily, it would shoot the propeller off, but a French engineer had devised the idea of putting steel plates inside of the propeller itself. Therefore, any bullets striking it would be deflected. Roland Garros became the terror of the German airmen. He shot down plane after plane, and if it had not been for an accident, the French and English would have controlled the skies during the entire war. However, on April 19, Garros’s engine failed, and he was forced to land behind German lines. The airplane was captured intact and handed over to a young man only twenty-four years of age by the name of Anthony Fokker. Fokker was intrigued by the device but proceeded to invent a much more effective one. Mounting a machine gun to the engine hood, he invented a cam system that worked a push rod connected by wire to the hammer of the machine gun. In effect, this stopped the hammer from hitting the firing pin every time the blade passed the gun. As Fokker put it, the propeller controlled the gun. Oswald Boelcke, who became the leading German Ace, took it up in a Fokker E-11 and shot down a French plane with ease. From that time on Germany ruled the skies. French and English planes could not stand up against the deadly new weapon, and there was talk in high places that the Fokker invention would win the war. The Allied pilots began to call themselves “Fokker fodder” as man after man went down in flames under the guns of the German pilots.
The German pilots were ordered not to fly over enemy lines so that none of their planes could be captured, but, in an irony that often comes in wartime, a German pilot caught in a thick fog landed at a French airfield. His plane and the secret of the Fokker gun invention were all captured, drawings were made, reports were written, and then all was filed away. Not a member of the military personnel did anything about getting the invention to men such as Lance Winslow, who so desperately needed it.
****
Immediately after the war had started, a strange message had been widely spread across Europe. “England will be destroyed by fire.” Some said this was simply an attempt on the part of Germany to intimidate its enemy. The belief that Germany wanted spread was that the United Kingdom would be brought to its knees by the Zeppelin, a powerful airship of destruction that had been invented by the influential German Count von Zeppelin.
For ten years the Zeppelin had proved its worth as a potentially great mode of transportation. It had been the target of a great deal of military investigation, and one year before the beginning of the war, a young naval officer entered a German naval headquarters in Berlin. He drew himself up before the senior officer, who said without any preliminaries, “Lieutenant Strasser, we have lost the commanding officer of our naval airship division. He went down in the crash of Zeppelin L-1 in the North Sea.”
“Yes, sir. I heard she had gone down with all hands.”
“Lieutenant, I am placing you in command of Naval Zeppelins.”
Lieutenant Peter Strasser stared in disbelief. “But, sir, I have no experience in lighter-than-air craft!”
“We know that, Lieutenant, but we know you have the technical ability and flexibility to transfer your talents to this arm of our forces. We must bring England down, and you will be the man in charge of accomplishing it.”
Lieutenant Peter Strasser threw himself into learning his craft. For one year he drove himself like a demon possessed to learn everything there was to know about airships. He became a walking encyclopedia in his field, and soon he found himself in charge of a fleet of mighty and enormous Zeppelins with which to institute bombing raids against Britain’s targets, especially London. He did face one obstacle. Kaiser Wilhelm II had blood ties to the British Royal Family and cringed at the reputation he would achieve as a murderer within his own family if German bombs killed women and children and other British civilians. Finally, however, he relented, and on New Year’s Day 1915, a telegram informed Strasser that the kaiser had authorized raids on London. The raids were limited to docks, military facilities, and troop encampments. No bombs would be dropped, the order read, on the heart of London.
Peter Strasser was ready and his men were eager. On January 19, 1915, the historic first Zeppelin raid on England took place. Three new ships, L-3, L-4, and L-6, lifted off at eleven A.M. Strasser himself led the raid, but engine trouble forced him to turn back. The raid itself was not much. Two Zeppelins reached their target and each one dropped six 110-pound bombs in the Norfolk region. The bombs damaged the town square, destroyed several buildings, killed four people, and injured sixteen others.
Strasser was not discouraged. He saw the Zeppelin as the means of bringing England to its knees and threw all his efforts into the task. All Germany needed was one big, successful raid to launch its basic objective, which was to paralyze its enemy and force it quickly into submission.
****
“Papa, take me out to look through the telescope.”
Gabby pulled at her father’s shirt, her eyes turned upward. “Please, Papa. Before I go to bed I want to look at the stars.”
Lance had just informed Gabby that it was time for bed, but, as usual, she began a crusade to put off such a move as long as possible. He shook his head and smiled, saying, “It’s too late, Gabby. Tomorrow night I’ll take you out to look at the stars.” Looking over, he smiled at Noelle, who was seated across the room reading. “She knows the names of more stars than I do.”
Noelle looked up and smiled. “I’m glad you’re teaching her things like this. She likes the telescope so well, don’t you, Gabby?”
Lance had bought a powerful telescope, which Gabby had learned to love. Lance had become an amateur astronomer and had bought several books on the subject. Nothing relaxed him more than getting out after dark and studying the night skies. Now that May 1915 had come, he had the spring skies to gaze at with a new set of constellations.
Gabby pulled at his shirt again. “Please, Papa! Just for a little while.”
“Will that be all right, Noelle? It’s not too late?” Lance inquired.
“Well, just for thirty minutes, perhaps.”
“I think we’ll go down the street where there are fewer lights. Easier to see that way. Come along.” Lance went over and, bending down, took Noelle’s face between his hands. Tilting it upward, he kissed her and winked. “You wait right here, Mrs. Winslow. I have a few things to say to you tonight.”
Noelle’s eyes twinkled m
ischievously. “Very well, Mr. Winslow. Your obedient wife will be waiting for you. You put Gabby to bed and come right along.” There was a warm promise in her eyes, and she pulled his head down and kissed him, then put her lips close to his ear. “I’m glad you’re still romantic even after we’re just an old married couple.”
Lance held her for a moment. “You’ll never be old,” he whispered. Then he straightened up and said, “Come along, Gabby.” Picking up the telescope, the two left the flat and made their way down the street. The stars overhead were bright and sparkling, and he pointed upward, saying, “Do you know that constellation, Gabby?”
“Of course I do, Papa. That’s the Big Dipper. Everybody knows that!”
“And can you find the North Star for me?”
“Yes. That’s it right there. See?” She pointed upward and chatted incessantly until they reached their position. He set up the telescope, and soon the two were deeply engrossed in looking at the glittering stars overhead. It was a mild night with very little wind blowing, and their part of the city lay quietly under the night skies.
Abruptly the silence was broken by a shattering roar that brought Lance upright in a stiff position.
“What was that?”
“That was a bomb, sweetheart.” He grabbed the telescope, his heart beating fast. “Come along. We’ve got to get back to your mother.”
Even as the two ran back, another explosion took place and then a series of them.
“Zeppelin raids!”
Lance had not been concerned about an air raid, for they had been rare, but now ahead of him he saw flames shooting up and the earth rumble as more bombs struck. He glanced upward and thought he saw a shadowy form high overhead, but he did not stop to think.
God, keep Noelle safe, he prayed as he moved along as swiftly as possible. His pace was impeded by Gabby, who began to cry. He picked her up in his arms, and then as he turned the corner, what he saw drew him up still, and fear shot through him.
The Flying Cavalier Page 7
