by Max Hennessy
‘What the hell are night fighters?’
‘Same as day fighters. Camels with knobs on. And why not? After all, we did quite well with those fearful BEs. Why can’t we do better with Camels?’
‘How do we get up and down?’ I said. ‘I seem to remember that was always a problem.’
‘Special lights. Better flare paths. Try it and see. Ought to be rather jolly.’
It was a bit nerve-wracking at first, getting a machine as unstable as a Camel off the ground in the dark, but Sykes had at least given us more than a piece of string tied to the centre section for instruments and, with special phosphorescent dials, it was possible now to tell which way up we were flying. He’d also taken the Vickers guns off the cowling where the muzzle flash would dazzle us in the dark and mounted two Lewises on the top wing in their place. Getting down was easier, too, because he’d organized decent flares and a proper system so there was no danger of hitting each other in the dark. I even began to feel optimistic.
There were a few alarms and we went up a few times but we always seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and we never saw anything.
‘If only we could get these radio chaps to tune in on ’em somehow and tell us where to find them,’ I said.
Sykes stared at me. ‘How?’
‘I dunno how,’ I said. ‘Some sort of signal that would play a note on their flying wires or their engines or something, and come back so we could pick it up. Or a noise detector. The army have listening posts to pick up enemy telephone messages. Something like that so we could follow ’em round in the dark.’
He grinned. ‘Come back in the next war,’ he said, ‘we’ll see what we can do.’
I shrugged. ‘No, thanks,’ I said. ‘That one’ll be a lot different, and I hope I’m not in it because it’ll be dangerous. They’ll have real aircraft then – aircraft where you can leave the wheels behind or something when you take off, so you’ve no drag.’ I grinned. ‘Lulu, that’s a hell of an idea – no wheels hanging down – think of the increased speed.’
‘You always did have ideas ahead of your station, Brat,’ he smiled. ‘Let’s concentrate on what we’ve got.’
We continued to wait, chasing about in the dark, perfecting the technique and training newcomers. There were a few accidents, mostly coming down, but nothing serious because Sykes had thought a great deal about it and everything was well organized. Then suddenly, just when things were going well, he was taken off the job.
‘Middle East,’ he said with a rueful grin. ‘They’ve got something they need clearing up there. Fearfully exciting. Fancy coming with me?’
‘Not really,’ I said. ‘I think my job’s in France. And flying day fighters, too, come to think of it. I’m wasting my time here. I can do more damage where I was.’
He laughed. ‘Good old Brat,’ he said. ‘Unparalleled ferocity as usual. Give my love to Charlotte.’
And then he was gone, leaving everyone feeling bereft as usual, because of his charm, and me with a determination to get back to my own squadron.
Since the thing was organized and working well now, Brand said I could go at the end of the week and I began to pack my kit again. But that night the bombers were over again and, as they found the ammunition dump at Marigny and started to plaster it, we all started running for our machines. The whole sky seemed to be going up in flares of white and red and yellow, and the earth under my pounding feet felt as though an earthquake was taking place.
We got off the ground in a hurry, going up like lifts, the Camel vibrating madly under the strain as I forced every inch of climb out of her. I soon lost the rest of the squadron who were heading west, even the man I was supposed to be working with, a captain like myself called Yuille, but I was able to use the fires burning on the ground for a horizon, and sitting up there in the darkness, with the wires and the leading edges of the wings faintly picking up the light, I reflected that we still had a long way to go before night fighting was going to be much good.
Finding my height, I flew east, deciding that the Germans must swing round and head homewards after dropping their bombs, so that I would be across their path; and sure enough, half an hour later, half-frozen and beginning to grow bored with the darkness, I saw a huge aeroplane just emerging from the scattered clouds towards Abbeville, an enormous machine big enough to take my breath away, like a vast dark cross just above me, with a wing span that seemed to fill the sky.
At first I thought it was one of the Gothas which I knew well from the raids on London, but then I saw it had five engines, one in the nose and two each in nacelles between the huge wings. Uncertain what it was, I made a wary turn, looking for the guns. It seemed to have firing positions in the nose, in the fuselage and on the top wing, and I guessed the wingspread to be around a hundred and fifty feet. It also had a biplane tail and a nose wheel, which was something I’d never seen before.
Opening the throttle, I began to climb towards it. Our combined speeds must have been in the region of two hundred miles an hour and there was no time to manoeuvre for position, so as soon as I came up close I pressed the button. As the guns jumped and rattled and I smelled the cordite, I knew I’d hit it but I also knew that it was so big it would need a lot of bullets to do any damage, and I found myself longing again for something that would fire small explosive shells to blow chunks off it.
The huge aeroplane was turning slightly now, away from me, and as I came in again a searchlight sprang up, blinding me with the overspill. Then another and another and another. I swung away, afraid of colliding, and when I looked again they were holding the German like a huge white crucifix in a cone of light just above me.
‘I bet that makes them blink a bit,’ I thought.
I was over Abbeville now and I wondered where the other fighters were because my petrol was running low and it would soon be time for me to land. But, just then, I saw another machine astern of the German, coming in fast, and I decided that if I could have just one more go close in, it would keep the gunners busy till he arrived.
As I went in, they saw me clearly in the light and there seemed to be so many bullets flying around I couldn’t make out why they didn’t hit me. There were at least six guns firing at me and as little flags of fabric began to flutter on the wings I decided it was safer to get out again and flipped the Camel over in a tight turn with the wings flat against the sky.
As I did so, I caught a glimpse of the other fighter close behind the giant’s tail, in the killing position, and even as I looked he must have fired because I saw a sudden flare of flame start in one of the German’s wing nacelles, quite distinct as a bright glow against the sky.
As I caught my breath, the big machine tilted over on one wing, lumbering and slow, as though manoeuvring were difficult because of its size, then it went into a shallow dive towards the east. Still watching, I saw its slow turn grow steeper and the nose drop abruptly. Pieces broke off – first one or two and then more and more – and, yelling excitedly above the roar of the engine, I saw them fluttering down in the flare of the searchlights. One of the huge wings began to crumple – at first merely sagging, then concertinaing as though it were tired – and the machine was carried round the debris by the remaining good wing so that the aeroplane was doing a flat spin. Then the good wing crumpled, too, and the huge nose dropped and the vast machine went down like a huge flaming torch, growing smaller and smaller in the darkness until I saw it thump into the ground near Abbeville and the glow of flame as it exploded.
Yuille was already down when I got back and he grinned as I appeared. ‘My God, man,’ he said, ‘you didn’t have to go in that close! I thought you were trying to shoot him down with your revolver!’
There was no doubting the victory and Yuille was given due credit for it, and the party that started went on into the early hours of the morning. The following day we learned that the machine was a Staaken, one of the giants built by the Zeppelin works when their airships had proved such a costly failure. Someone ha
d gathered some data and we seemed to have done a real giant killer act. There had only been a few built and it had five Maybach engines and carried a ton of bombs, with a wingspan of a hundred and eighty-three feet and a length of seventy-four. It had six machine guns, as I’d decided, a crew of five and carried parachutes – two of which had actually been found – fastened to fixed positions with static lines, so that they operated like those in observation balloons.
‘My God,’ Yuille breathed enviously. ‘Parachutes too! What’s the war coming to?’
‘Perhaps the Germans aren’t so damn’ silly as our side to send pilots up without ’em,’ I said.
‘They might even give ’em to fighter pilots before long,’ he grinned. ‘There are a few chaps at the top now who’ve actually flown in action and they know damn’ well that a parachute – even a poor one that’s none too reliable – is better than nothing at all.’
One or two pilots went to see the wreckage but I decided that, with the flames and the speed with which the Staaken had hit the ground, there wouldn’t be anything left to look at, and also, by this stage of the war, smashed aeroplanes only served to make me think it might be my turn next.
Because of the success, a man from Wing came to try to persuade me to stay with the squadron but I didn’t like night fighters and, fortunately, at that moment the war woke up again and someone at headquarters decided I’d better go back to where I was most use.
Munro fell on me as if I were a long-lost son, but the party he planned to celebrate the return of the prodigal came to nothing because the same day the army took a marked aversion to observation balloons and demanded that they be knocked down all along the front. Knowing what was ahead of us we went quietly to bed instead. Balloon strafing was never a popular job because the ground around them was always crammed with anti-aircraft and machine guns, and on the first of the forays Taylor was wounded and on the second one of Munro’s flight was seen to dive into the ground.
Munro’s anger took the form of a baffled glare. ‘Ah reckon the war’ll only end when we run oot o’ men,’ he said. ‘When the last two fellers are standin’ up in the ruins sloggin’ at each ither wi’ clubs like stone age warriors because we’ve run oot o’ guns.’
The next day Richthofen’s lot turned up again.
* * *
The morning was cool and overcast with a strong west wind pushing a blanket of misty cloud before it, and the front line was marked with the grey wool of smoke from exploding shells streaming before the wind so that as I led the squadron north it was difficult to tell exactly where the line lay. Then I saw swarms of khaki-clad figures edging forward in little groups, clotting at the wire, or behind ridges and ruined buildings. Behind the German lines troops were moving up with columns of carts and gun limbers. Near Wervey we caught a battery of guns in a sunken road, and as we swung back over them to study the damage, my stomach turned as I saw the tangle of harness and guns and the struggling, screaming, dying horses.
The evening patrol was a high one for a change, with Munro and Jones tagging on behind. Seeing a large formation of brightly-coloured Fokkers south of Lille, I went for them and for once they didn’t disappear eastwards. As we dived I saw a Camel spin away, then a red Fokker with brown wing tips slid sideways in front of me, like a duck rising out of the weeds. As I fired automatically, it flopped on its back and hurtled downwards like a square-winged coffin.
For a while the sky was full of aeroplanes in a whirling hubbub of machines. Diving Fokkers, all the colours of the rainbow, drifted across in front as I kicked at the rudder and pressed the trigger, then as the fight broke up a flight of SEs arrived, going through the scattering aeroplanes, guns clamouring, and we were alone again with the Germans dropping out of the sky towards the east.
We made our way back to Puy in twos and threes and it was hard to tell who was missing and who was not. My own flight came back unscathed except for a few holes, but after the sudden descent from the height we’d been at, we all felt faint and exhausted and when the blood got moving properly in our veins the feeling was agony. Jones had lost a man and Munro had lost Milne. I was sorry to hear it because Milne was showing signs of becoming quite good, with every chance of surviving the awful period of a newcomer’s initiation.
‘Makes y’ understand why we get flying pay,’ Munro said slowly. ‘Naebody wi’ any brains would do what we do f’r less. It’s like goin’ o’er the top three times a day.’
‘What happened to him?’ I asked.
‘Hit the ground somewhere near Meulebeke.’
‘Could he have got out?’
He shook his head in a dour dogged way, then he sniffed and lit his pipe, low in spirits suddenly.
‘They have their teams o’ killers,’ he went on slowly, ‘and we have oors, and we all ken weel that whate’er happens some puir wee body’s gaein’ tae get hurt. It reminds ye o’ those gladiator laddies the Romans used tae have. All professionalism, technical skill, expertise, cold-bloodedness, indifference an’—’ he sighed ‘—an’ a weariness of killing.’
Chapter 6
The next day it started all over again. The Germans were persisting with their offensives but it seemed now that their attacks were being made with a feeling of desperation. Down in the south they’d been stopped dead, and on the Italian front they were actually being pushed back so that it seemed that any further offensives they undertook could be nothing but a gamble.
As the weather grew hotter, they attacked between Paris and the Meuse but their offensive was smashed and the allies began to counter-attack and then, to everybody’s surprise – because, although we’d been expecting something of the sort for a long time, we’d never dared to hope it would come off – the whole front came to life in a counter-offensive and for the first time we saw the Germans not merely retreating but actually reeling back in confusion.
‘It’s happenin’, mon!’ Munro said in an awed voice. ‘It’s happenin’! Ah never thought Ah’d live tae see the day! Ah honestly think it’s comin’ tae an end.’
That night the place went mad. Despite the few older men who were appearing now, the squadron – like most of the squadrons along the front – by the very nature of the game was still composed of boys barely out of their ’teens. From the pinnacle of old age where three years of front line flying had placed me I sometimes felt, forgetting how young I was myself, that their hotheaded youth was heartbreaking, but it also had the advantage that there were always willing helpers when someone wanted to organize a party. That night Jones proved to be a rival to Munro as a musician. Having joined the army as a drummer, he’d also learned to play a few other instruments and he could raise the roof with the trumpet. His nose pushed out of joint a little, Munro challenged him to play God Save The King standing on one leg, and he not only stood on one leg but he did it on a stool balanced on a chair, playing the trumpet with one hand and balancing a billiard cue on the tip of the first finger of the other.
All might still have been well but Munro grew ambitious, and, not content with thumping on a piano, he acquired a set of bagpipes from somewhere and the sound of the two of them standing on the table trying to play Land of Hope and Glory was enough to bring in the pilots from the Bristol squadron to start a battle with flying pieces of bread. ‘Och, the fine sound,’ Munro was saying proudly as the table collapsed.
Jones was as mad as a pilot as he was as a musician and it was his pleasure to chase hares across the fields at an altitude of nought feet, in the same way that he liked to chase staff cars down the roads. It was a daring that came from over-stretched nerves – because he’d been out since February – and it was the sort of manifestation of thinly-disguised fear that worried me, because I’d always believed that aeroplanes, like motor cars, were lethal unless properly used – even to the people who were controlling them.
‘There’s kind of you to warn me,’ he smiled when I said I thought he ought to cut it out. ‘But we all know there are no Welshmen in heaven, boyo, and Dai Ba
ch isn’t expecting to die with his boots off. I’ll chance it.’
There was plenty of opportunity because the allied generals suddenly seemed to be scenting victory and they began to throw everything they had at the Germans and, with the brilliant weather, there were no periods of calm when we could recover a little. Before, it had always been possible to think about what you were going to do, make plans about how best to tackle a job and decide on methods of attack. But not now. Now it was just a dogged grinding slog to drive the Germans out of the sky and out of every fortification they tried to build and hold. Previously, men with bright ideas had been listened to, and I’d come up with a few myself, but now we simply went headlong into everything, accepting casualties so that the Germans should not be allowed to recover and make a stand. There was no room for intelligence, just bull-headed attacks, and there wasn’t even time to think much, because ‘shows’ were called for again and again, sometimes two or three a day.
Machines began to falter and nerves grew ragged, and men were killed as judgement failed. There was an appalling accident right in front of our eyes when one of the Bristols just coming back from the line after destroying a Fokker, started to shoot the place up as a gesture of triumph and broke up right over the aerodrome. The wings snapped back and it dipped forward abruptly so that the crew were jerked out. I thought they were going to drop on me and started to run, but they hit the ground just behind and I could hear the heavy double thud for the rest of the night.
The list grew all the time. Even the men who came from England told of crashes in which someone whose name was known had been killed. The whole war in France had taken place for four years in a narrow strip of churned-up land three hundred miles long by ten miles wide so that the old hands all seemed to know each other and everyone who fell out of the sky or killed himself in some stupid accident caused by tiredness and relaxed alertness was just another jab at the heart. Every time we entered the mess, someone seemed to say ‘Remember old so-and-so? Flew into a hangar at Hendon while he was taking off,’ or ‘Remember George Whatsisname? Student pilot landed on top of him while he was taxiing at Shoreham.’
