Fighting the Flying Circus

by Captain Eddie V. Rickenbacker

  I found Captain Miller at the Villeneuve aerodrome when I arrived there on March 4, 1918. He had command of the fighting squadron adjoining mine, the 95th. But he had no machines and no equipment and apparently he was as remote from air combats there as he had been in Paris. Still dominated with the one idea of getting into a fight with the enemy, it was especially difficult for him to be patient.

  One day toward the middle of March we received a visit from Major Davenport Johnson and Major Harmon, who were then temporarily attached to one of the French Spad Squadrons in the vicinity. I shall never forget the boyish delight with which Captain Miller came to me after their departure and confided to me what he considered the most cherished secret in his life. Major Johnson had promised him that he might call at his aerodrome the following day and take a flight over the lines in one of their machines. He was ecstatically happy over the prospect.

  I never saw him again. The following evening we were notified through military channels that Captain James Miller was missing. Not until several days later did I learn the details of his disappearance. Major Johnson himself had accompanied Miller on his first flight and they had passed over Rheims and proceeded toward the Argonne Forest—the very same patrol on which Lufbery had taken me but a few days before.

  Two squadrons of enemy two-seaters were encountered some distance inside the enemy lines. At this point Major Johnson discovered that his guns had jammed, and without warning Miller of his problem, turned back and went back to his field. Not realizing that he was alone, Miller attacked what turned out to be a large formation of enemy planes carrying aerial gunners as well as pilots. In the melee, he was shot down and never heard from again.

  A month later a German official report reached us that Captain James Miller of the American Air Service had been wounded in combat and had fallen within German territory, where he died a few hours later.

  Poor Jim! His was the first and most sorrowful loss that had come to our new group. Then it was I learned that I must not permit myself to cherish friendships with my pilot comrades so intimately that their going would upset the work I had to do. For every aviator's day's work included the same risks that had cost Jim Miller his life. If one permitted constant anxiety for friends to weigh down one's spirits one could not long continue work at the front.

  These days of March 1918 were trying ones for our Allies in the British and French armies. It was known that the enemy was preparing for a conclusive and tremendous push within a few days, with which to gain the Channel ports against the British, before the troops from the United States could be in position to aid them.

  The Germans knew better than our own countrymen at home realized just how difficult would be our preparations for a really important force of airplanes. They had seen the spring months pass; and instead of viewing with alarm the huge fleet of twenty thousand airplanes sweeping the skies clear of German Fokkers, they had complacently witnessed the Fokkers occupying the air back of our lines whenever they desired it, with never an American plane to oppose them.

  On March 21, 1918, the great German attack was launched against the British in the north. We heard serious rumors about the numbers of prisoners captured by the Huns and the rapid advances they were making in each push.

  Our aerodrome at Villeneuve was at that time but eighteen miles from the lines. In clear weather we could distinctly see our line of observation balloons, which stretched along the front between us and the lines. The booming of guns sounded continuously in our ears. On March 30 we were ordered to move our squadrons to another aerodrome farther away from the front. We went to Epiez that day, where we found ourselves about thirty miles from the lines and still with no machines with which we might hope to help stem the alarming advance of the enemy.

  Here at Epiez the 94th Squadron was joined by Captain James Norman Hall, the author of Kitcheners Mob and High Adventure; also Captain David McK. Peterson, of Honesdale, Pennsylvania. Both of them were experienced pilots who had become celebrated for their air work in the Lafayette Escadrille and who did much to enhearten us and instruct us during this forlorn period. We had all heard of these boys and idolized them before we had seen them. I cannot adequately describe the inspiration we all received from the coming of these two veteran air fighters to our camp.

  A day or two after we had settled down in our new aerodrome we heard the buzzing of an approaching machine. All hands rushed out to see what it meant. A Nieuport bearing American colors assured us it was a friend and probably another new member of our squadron, since he was preparing to land on our field.

  He shut off his engine and glided down until his wheels skimmed the ground. The next instant her nose struck the mud and in a twinkling the machine had somersaulted over onto her back and slid along toward us tail foremost. We walked out to the wreck to secure the remains of the raw pilot who hadn't learned yet how to land a machine, and some of us made rather caustic comments about the authorities sending us such unsophisticated aviators. Imagine our stupefaction when we discovered the grinning face of Captain Hall himself looking at us upside down!

  Fortunately he wasn't hurt in the slightest, and I think he would be glad if he could know how much good it did all of us young pilots to discover that even the best airmen can sometimes come a cropper.

  Captain Hall climbed out of his wreckage and coming over to me told me that there was another machine still at our old aerodrome which must be flown over. I was directed to get a motorcar and drive back to Villeneuve and, after making certain that everything was in order with the Nieuport, fly home with it on the morrow.

  I accordingly got myself ready and set out. It was late at night when we started. Shortly before midnight we entered a small village just south of Chalons on the river Marne. Suddenly we noticed people running excitedly about the streets and as they came under the glare of my headlights I saw they were absolutely stricken with terror. I stopped the car, as an old man came running up to me, and asked him what was the trouble.

  “The Boches are overhead!” was his reply, pointing upward into the night. “Please, m'sieu', put out the lights of your car!”

  I snapped out the headlights and stood there for a moment, watching those poor people scurrying about for shelter. Old women whose backs were bent with age and toil were running helter-skelter through the streets for the open country, small children clinging to their skirts. They did not know where they were going, and many of them ran into each other as they crossed to and fro. Their one idea was to get away from their beds, where they imagined the bombs from the Hun airplanes would be certain to find them. In truth that would have been the safest place for them to remain.

  We proceeded through the village and a moment later came to a rise in the ground from which we could see the antiaircraft shells bursting above the city of Chalons, a few miles ahead of us. Many sweeping searchlights were searching the heavens with yellow fingers itching to find the path where the enemy planes were pursuing their way. For almost an hour we stood on this hill and regarded the spectacle with the same critical interest we had often experienced in watching an opera. Then suddenly the lights were extinguished and the booming of exploding shells ceased. We regretfully climbed back into our car and continued on our way. The show was over!

  It took us an hour to wake up the landlady in the best hotel in Chalons that night. When we finally found the night bell and kept a resolute finger upon the button until the storage battery threatened to become exhausted, the good woman appeared in negligee and asked us if we wanted to come in. She apologized most heartily when she discovered we were not Germans but Americans—her beloved Americans, she called us—and we were soon tucked away in her best beds, covered with mountainous eiderdowns which reached halfway to the low ceiling.

  The next morning we proceeded on to the old aerodrome where I found the last of our Nieuports and had it run out and tested. After half an hour's inspection I found everything right and climbed aboard the little 'bus and waved my two mechanics good-by. In thi
rty minutes I was over the Epiez field, having covered the same road which had consumed four and a half hours by motorcar, the night before.

  Up to this time—April 3, 1918—only my squadron (the 94th, commanded by Major John Huffer, one of the old Lafayette fliers) and Captain James Miller's squadron, the 95th, were at the front. Both squadrons had been together at Villeneuve and together had moved to Epiez. None of the pilots of either squadron had been able to do any fighting at the front, owing to the lack of airplane guns. In fact the pilots of Squadron 95 had not yet been instructed in the use of airplane guns, although this squadron had been sent to the front a short time before 94 Squadron had arrived there. We of 94 Squadron however had been diverted to the Aerial Gunnery School at Cazeau for a month early in the year and were now ready to try our luck in actual combat fighting over the lines. But we had no guns on our machines.

  Then suddenly guns arrived! All sorts of wonderful new equipment began pouring in. Instruments for the airplanes, suits of warm clothing for the pilots, extra spares for the machines. And at the same moment the foolish virgins of Squadron 95 who hadn't yet learned how to shoot in the air were sent back to the Cazeau school, while old 94, destined to become the greatest American squadron in France in the number of its victories over the enemy, was ordered to vacate the Epiez aerodrome and move on eastward and north to Toul. On April 10, 1918, we took our departure, flying our Nieuports over to an old aerodrome east of Toul which had been vacated by the French for our use. Supplies, beds, mess furniture, oil and gasoline and all the multitudinous paraphernalia of an aviation camp followed us in lorries and trucks. For a day or two we had our hands full with settling ourselves in our new quarters and acquainting ourselves with our sector of the map. We were two miles east of Toul, one of the most important railroad connections on our side of the front and a town that the enemy tried almost daily to demolish with airplane bombs. We were barely eighteen miles from the lines and in a country covered with rolling hills and extensive forests.

  Nancy lay fifteen miles to the east of us, Luneville twelve miles farther east and the highway from Toul to Nancy to Luneville lay parallel to the enemy lines and within easy shelling distance of the Hun guns. But along this highway one would not have realized that a war was on. East of this point no efforts had been made at an offensive by either side. Business went on as usual in Luneville. Children played in the streets and traffic pursued its leisurely way. An occasional German sentry faced a French sentry along the lines from Luneville to Switzerland, at intervals of a hundred yards or so, but it was libelously said that these sentries messed together and slept together for the sake of companionship. This situation was considerably altered later, when the Americans came in. The country of the Vosges Mountains was thought to be too rough to permit invasion by either side.

  North and west of our Toul aerodrome lay Verdun. Verdun, the sine qua non of German success! Under the Verdun citadel, built in 1863, lay an underground army of seventy thousand men. No use to attempt to go around Verdun and leave seventy thousand attackers in their rear. Verdun must ever be threatened, even while desperate attacks were being launched against Amiens, Ypres, and the Marne. Consequently considerable airplane activity was indulged in by the pilots of the Huns in this sector, and here the first American fighting squadron was sent to demonstrate to the world the air ability of American fliers, in combat fighting. And 94 got that chance!

  The squadron at that time was commanded, as I have said, by Major John Huffer. He was one of America's best pilots and finest fellows, but curiously enough, he had been born in France and had never been in America nor in any English-speaking country, though he had traveled extensively abroad and spoke English like a Harvard man. Major Huffer had served in the Ambulance Division since the early days of the war, later joining the Foreign Legion with William Thaw, Victor Chapman and other American boys. When the American Escadrille was formed, he entered aviation and thus was a veteran war pilot long before America came into the war.

  When he discovered that our beloved squadron was to receive the distinction of being the first actually to begin fighting for America, the question of a significant and proper squadron insignia became of prime importance to us. We were busy those first days in Toul painting our machines with the American Red, White, and Blue, with our individual markings and with the last finishing touches which would prepare them for their first expedition over the lines. Then came the ideas for our insignia!

  Major Huffer suggested Uncle Sam's stovepipe hat with the Stars and Stripes for a hatband. And our post Surgeon, Lieutenant Walters of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, raised a cheer by his inspiration of the “Hat-in-the-Ring.” It was immediately adopted and the next day designs and drawings were made by Lieutenant John Went-worth of Chicago, which soon culminated in the adoption of the bold challenge painted on the sides of our fighting planes, which several scores of enemy airmen have since been unfortunate enough to dispute.

  Toul then saw the launching of America's first fighting squadron. And it was from this aerodrome that I won my first five victories in the following thirty days.

  CHAPTER III

  Our First Sorties

  On the evening of April 13, 1918, we were a happy lot of pilots, for we were reading on our new Operations Board the first war-flight order ever given by an All-American Squadron Commander to All-American pilots. It stated in simple terms that Captain Peterson, Lieutenant Reed Chambers and Lieutenant E. V. Ricken-backer would start on a patrol of the lines tomorrow morning at six o'clock. Our altitude was to be sixteen thousand feet; our patrol was to extend from Pont-a-Mousson to Saint-Mihiel and we were to return at eight o'clock—a two-hours' patrol. Captain Peterson was designated as leader of the flight.

  Picture the map of these French towns, as every pilot in our Squadron 94 had it indelibly impressed into his memory. While flying in the vicinity of enemy territory it is quite essential that one should know every landmark on the horizon. Every river, every railroad, highway, and village must be as familiar to the airman as are the positions of first, second, and third bases to the home-runner.

  Toul is eighteen miles almost directly south of Pont-à-Mousson, Saint-Mihiel is directly west of Pont-a-Mousson about the same distance. The battle lines ran straight between Pont-a-Mousson and Saint-Mihiel; then they turned north to run another eighteen miles to the edge of Verdun. Straight north of Pont-a-Mousson some twenty miles Metz is situated. And around Metz several squadrons of Hun bombing airplanes and fighting machines had their lairs on a hilltop, from which they surveyed the lines which we were to patrol this thirteenth day of April. In short, the sector from Pont-&-Mousson to Saint-Mihiel was fairly alive with air activity when weather conditions permitted.

  This was the beat on which Captain Peterson, Chambers, and I would find ourselves tomorrow at six. Lieutenant Douglas Campbell and Lieutenant Alan Winslow were directed in the same order to stand by on the alert at the hangar from six o'clock until ten the same morning. This “alert” was provided for any sudden emergency; such as an enemy bombing raid in our direction or a sudden call for help against an enemy airplane within our lines.

  Immediately after dinner that night Reed Chambers and I retired with Captain Peterson to his room, where we talked over the coming event. The captain gave us some curt directions about the precautions we should take in case of an attack, instructed me particularly that I was to lead the flight if anything happened to him or his engine, and under these circumstances I was to continue our patrol until the time was up. Then he summoned an orderly and gave orders to call all five of us at 5:00 A.M. Advising Reed and me to sleep tight and try not to dream about Fokker airplanes, off he went to bed.

  We knew very well what we would dream about. Try as I might, I could not get to sleep that night for hours. I thought over everything I had ever read or heard about airplane fighting. I imagined the enemies coming at me from every direction. I pictured to myself the various ways I would circumvent them and finally bring them tumbling dow
n to their final crash. At last I dropped off to sleep and continued dreaming the same maneuvers. Just as I was shooting down the last of a good-sized number, the orderly punched my elbow and woke me up. It was five o'clock.

  A wonderful morning greeted us and the five of us had a merry breakfast. We advised Campbell and Winslow to keep a sharp lookout above the aerodrome that morning, for we intended to stir up the Boches and undoubtedly there would be droves of them coming over our field for revenge.

  But upon reaching the field after breakfast we found that the atmosphere was bad and the mist so heavy that the ground was completely hidden a short distance away. Captain Peterson sent Chambers and myself up to reconnoiter at fifteen hundred feet. Away we went. After circling the field two or three times, we noticed Captain Peterson take off and climb up to join us. We continued climbing and just about the time we had attained the frigid altitude, sixteen thousand feet, I noticed the captain's machine gliding back to the field.

  “Ah!” thought I, “engine trouble! And he told me last night to carry on in case he dropped out! It is my show now. Come ahead, Chambers!”

  Unsophisticated as I was, I did not know the danger into which I was leading my companion, and as Chambers knew less about the country than I did, he readily followed my lead and away we flew.

  94 Squadrons patrol of the Front from Saint-Mihiel to Pont-ti-Mousson, May 5 to July 1, 1918

  We picked up the valley of the river Moselle and proceeded innocently upon our way and would probably have kept on to the Rhine, but for a sudden bark under the tail of Chambers' machine which announced that we were discovered over German guns. I had been shot up by Archie before and now gloried in the utter contempt I felt for him, but this was Reed's first experience with German antiaircraft artillery and, as he admitted later, he thought it was all over with him. He sheered in so close to me that we nearly collided. Gradually we maneuvered out of the zone of fire and eventually became so disdainful of the shell bursts that we proceeded grandly on our way without paying any attention to them.